RYTHM HERITAGE/3 days of the condor
from DISCO FIED lp/abc records,1976
CAM/CONDOR-ESPIONAGE feat.bald head slick (guru)
from SOULSHINE lp/inflamable records, 2001
oliver w. at soul sides recently posted geoff love's cover of the 3 days of the condor/main theme. i enjoyed his funky version and as this filmscore is one of my favorites, i felt i had to dig a little deeper.
RYTHM HERITAGE is one of these bands in the tradition of cover albums-except it's a reunion of top-notch studio sharks: dean parks, lee ritenour, ray parker on guitar, scott edwards/bass), ed green/drums), victor feldman/perc) and michael omartian/keyboards) as leader. they usually give an extra edge to their efforts, that include theme from s.w.a.t, baretta's theme, stevie wonder's my cherie amour and duke's caravan.
there's a good chance that most of these guys and guests (tom scott, ernie watts) performed the original filmscore session with dave grusin the very same year. then, as disco charts called, they smashed a few disco numbers (discofied) and add some electronics licks here and there. no version can't top the original condor but it has interesting synths and frankly, the disco cover artwork itself is worth the chase at record stores or on ebay.
very little google info about the band so you'll have to do your own homework.
3 DAYS OF THE CONDOR/track deleted
i don't know if any of you out there are familiar with french dj producer DJ CAM (french readers please stand up !). probably not. he's one of the first major electronic producers that emerged on the french scene in the 90's. djcam/laurent daumail's first prods were labeled as trip-hop but firmly rooted in jazz, breaks and hiphop tradition. early on, he created his own label, inflamable records and got on some kind of abstract tip. when french touch kicked in, he kept it real and stuck to his roots (instead of turning all 4 on the floor or deep or jazzy) he sometimes realized a few quality remixes of french pop artists (from post-mortem gainsbourg to jean-louis murat). plenty of djcam info here:
DJ CAM BIO
more about inflamable records & 2 bonus free downloads of gainsbourg and michael jackson cam remixes: INFLAMABLE
i always enjoyed cam's work. he has a distinctive style (classic jazz horns and piano, minimal but clever scratch technique)-though he never dares to wander too far from it.
then his SOULSHINE lp came out and the combination of live jams and studio prods reached a perfect balance of soul and hip hop. it was/is the perfect summer album. not a bad track on the whole lp (there's even a dj premier remix), no recipes he previously served. thanks to major contribution from duo tassel (tp) &naturel(sax) who as "fillet of soul" released in 2002 their own similar project on cam's label. cam (who dropped here the dj on the way) sure knows his classics but it takes some guts to mess with grusin's theme, blend it with beats and live jazz, guru's rhymes, keep the original B-movie groove and end with a winner.
roll down the roadster's windows and cruise on.
CONDOR/track deleted
if you can't find/order it at your local record store on amazon you can try here:
BUY
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Midwesterners in whitebread America for Cam! A friend turned me on to DJ Cam around Mad Blunted Jazz. There's a couple classics on that 2-disc set. 6 million ways to die?! Superphatdope, like Pablo Escobar! When I've been in France I've asked around about Cam and St. Germain (my 2 favorite frenchmen) and never found much interest. Say it ain't so, France!
I'm so disconnected from any kind of scene that would get into these guys that I didn't think Cam was unheard of...People have compared his work to DJ Shadow so I thought that was enough to get him some exposure...
Post a Comment