PLUNKY & ONENESS - CD NEVER TOO LATE

Popis - NEVER TOO LATE:
Never Too Late, the new album by Afro-funk, jazz veteran, J. Plunky Branch and his group Plunky & Oneness bridges genres and generations. The ambitious 16-song collection includes neo-soul, nu-jazz, and hip-hop songs about love, wisdom and purposeful partying. With Never Too Late Plunky & Oneness prove that eclecticism is no vice and variety can be its own reward. Produced by Plunky and his talented son, J. “Fire” Branch, Never Too Late is a collage of musical cross references and transmutations. The album begins with neo soul love songs, and it ends with go-go and funk. But, it is the meaningful message music in the middle that is the hip-hop jazz, heart and soul of the album. This is cutting edge stuff produced by Fire sampling Plunky’s songs from the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s and dubbing in new live performances and looped beats. This is father and son using past and present techniques to create future music. Funk is grown folks music. Fused with hip-hop, it can be music that delivers the word. On Never Too Late Plunky plays the role of the OG, the “Original Griot”, using lyrics to drop knowledge and to encourage and inspire. He is the “Old Guru” who spits, spouts, and speaks on philosophies of love and life, and advocates getting funky with it. The songs, riding on waves of urban rhythms, live music and deejay effects, convey lessons learned, urging us to “Be About the Future” while feeling our “Tribal Vibe” and acknowledging “We are One.” Never Too Late, Plunky’s 25th album, is primarily new and original music; however there are two cover songs and a bonus track in the collection. John Legend’s “Tonight (Best You Ever Had),” the album’s first single, is a saxophone-led go-go instrumental with sexy female vocal hooks. Frankie Beverly’s classic, “We Are One,” also rendered as a sax and vocals combo, is still a soulful call to unifying love. The bonus track, “Tableau Noir,” is collaboration with famed French rapper, Akhenaton of the IAM Band. It is a rap song about dark times in the world being like images on a blackboard which can be erased. The core Oneness group members breathe life into the music on the album. The sultry and soulful Charlayne “Chyp” Green is featured on vocals throughout. Young, VA-based musicians, keyboardist, J. L. Harris and guitarist, Jose Pomier, create shimmering, melodic tonal centers within the grooves. Bassist P. Muzi Branch, Plunky’s brother and long-time collaborator, is still thumping and pumping the bottom of the funk – in sync with Fire’s hip-hop beats and electronic percussion. Time travel happens when rhythm meets change, when vibrations are altered and re-ordered, when fault lines are crossed, when generations are bridged, when memories create new visions. Never Too Late is all about timeless lessons of love and life and locomotion. And it’s even more about Plunk phunk & the oneness thereof… Never Too Late CD Album: 16 Tracks, Total run time: 70 minutes Genres: Nu-jazz, funk, Hip-hop, R&B, soul Musical Cross-References: Robert Glaspar /Jill Scott/ John Coltrane Archie Shepp/Anita Baker/D’Angelo Pharaoh Sanders/Phyllis Hyman/Saul Williams Fela/ Sly Stone/Maze George Clinton/Erika Badu/ Chuck Brown/ Maceo Parker/ Steel Pulse/ Gil Scott Heron Dwele/Lalah Hathaway/ Amel Larrieux Never Too Late CD Album Songs Deions: 1. Tonight (Best You Ever Had) (John Legend) – A go-go grooving, saxophonic version of the hit song by John Legend. 2. A New Fantasy (J. Plunky Branch) – A neo-soul love song about new fantasies and you-fantasies and memories and more love… 3. Never Too Late (J. Branch. Jamiah Branch) – Old school funky R&B with a message: it’s never too late to live your dreams and create your own destiny 4. Be About the Future (Philip Branch, James Branch, arr. By Jamiah Branch) – A track created by Fire using elongated samples from the 20 year-old original recording of the song, mixed with new vocals, beats and sax to create a new future hip-hop song about saving the planet’s environment. 5. Tribal Vibe (Jamiah Branch, James Branch) – Mesmerizing sax over a percolating, bold, dark and dance-move-inducing hip-hop track; with enchanting vocals by Shonda Davis 6. We Are One (Frankie Beverly) – Frankie Beverly classic with a timeless message worth repeating. 7. Revolutionary Love (Funky Wood Sax) (James Branch, Jamiah Branch) This song is composed from a long sample of a funky, African balaphone and percussion track, updated with hip-hop drums, sax, and a chorus of voices singing about the nature of love being unsettling, life changing, ever-evolving – revolutionary. Dedicated to Fela, John Coltrane and Nelson Mandela. 8. Near You (James Branch, Charlayne Green) – Everything I want or need is near you, Love… 9. Leave Space For Love (James Branch) – A self-evident message wrapped in a reggae-tinged groove. 10. Space Jungle Love (James Branch, arr. By Jamiah Branch) – Time travel happens when we re-use sounds, technology and lessons from the past to speak to present day space travelers. Spoken word create special work. Dedicated to Sun Ra and Oneness of Juju 11. Caught Up In It (James Branch) – We get caught up in love and stay caught up in it until we begin it all over again and then… 12. Fire Me Up (A Go-Go Groove) (J. Branch, arr. By Jamiah Branch) – Neo-go-go to get your groove on. Chopped, sliced and diced and cooked by Fire – smokin’! 13. Sax in Strange Places (James Branch) – Saxy ride over a “strange” funky bass line 14. Sax Afrique (James Branch) – Groovy, rhythmic, saxy, jazzy, simplistic complexity without words 15. Jump Wiggle Wiggle (James Branch) – Funky instrumental line dance takeoff 16. Tableau Noir (Akhenaton, Plunky, Fire, N. Xaba) – A soulful retro jazz groove under a French rap about these troubling times on our mind which is like an erasable re-writeable blackboard Produced by J. Plunky Branch & J. Fire Branch Never Too Late CD Album Listening Flow: Push play. Tonight is going to be the Best You Ever Had, the best love, sex, listening and time ever, because right now is always is! While spending this wonderful time together we might generate A New Fantasy or two, but memories of good times shared and living our now moments will give us all we need. Living fully in the now teaches us that it’s Never Too Late for greatness, for being in love, for being all we ever wanted to be. It’s never too late for time travel; to Be About the Future; to see things on a grand scale; and take actions that lead to making things better. Tackling big issues like saving the planet’s environment and raising our children require that we step outside the personal and immerse ourselves in a Tribal Vibe and realize that We Are One. When we open ourselves to the greatest good, we create and share a Revolutionary Love. I find love and everything I need Near You. While I want you to do and have and pursue everything you could ever dream of, I’m telling you to Leave Space For Love in your life; leave room in your consciousness for that special, universal, expansive Space Jungle Love. In fact, get Caught Up In It, get into it, get some all over yourself; and get funky with it! Now’s the time to party and dance, so Fire Me Up (A Go-Go Groove). And let’s have Sax in Strange Places, sax on the beach, in the elevator, in the stairwell, in the dark. Let’s have sax in rhythmic freak spaces and call it Sax Afrique, sax that makes us Jump and Wiggle and Wiggle some more. Erase the Tableau Noir (Blackboard) and start anew with a new story. In fact, let’s do it all over again, from the top to the bottom and you don’t stop. Push repeat. ?