Customer Reviews

Street Lady

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4 star:		(7)
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I have this on vinyl...one of my favorite Blue Note album covers.
The music is very dated 70's blaxploitation, which happens to be one of my most favorite sounds. Plenty of flute and wah wah guitars. The vibe here is the ghetto in late afternoon when the street ladies start walking the beat. Actually this album is a loosely formed concept album based on a prostitute. This really isn't jazz - perhaps jazzy R&B or funk would be a better description. If you enjoy the background music in Curtis Mayfield and Bobby Womack cuts - you'll feel right at home with this one.

Street Lady is a eclectic mix of contemporay jazz tunes that one can sit and listen to. My favorite cuts are "Street Lady" and "Lansanas Street Priestess!" I suggest that you take a chance of the collection! Oh, and by the way, those aren't ladies on the cover of the album! It took me years before I actually figured that one out!! Four Stars!

This CD drips with Donald Byrd's 70's funk/smooth/jazz sound. Lansana's Priestess is the gem of the album. This was one of the albums that helped my transition to jazz. Very nice vocal harmonies on all tunes make this a keeper.

You can almost feel the heat off the Harlem (or neighbourhood) pavement from these tunes. There's a sultriness to these vibes that recalls hot summer breezes, just hanging out, and the natural horniness that days like that arouses. A very outdoor groove abounds here, with instrumentation and chord progressions that recall blaxploitation soundtracks, but with greater flair and always with the lightness of spirit and sheer delight in life that Byrd exhibits so flawlessly in his more upbeat offerings. Easy perhaps to overlook as a funky background music, it's actually an accomplished affair and another example of Byrd's mastery of creating atmosphere.

Be not afraid, musicheads. You may expect these tough ladies to be guarding Miles On the Corner. In reality, they are hanging with Donald Byrd, right here.

The comparison is one of opposites. While Miles was creating a pitch black, funky improvisational brew in the first half of the 1970s Byrd made a melodic, chipper funk, filled with flutes, voices, and his own sailing trumpet, You can even draw the opposition down to the playing: Miles spitting minimal wha wha nails, and Byrd sailing over the top with the same cheer as a bop record.

Byrd started this template with Blackbyrd--smooth jazz when the term meant chirping grooves provided by aces like bassist Chuck Rainy and, here, drummer Harvey Mason, and did not mean digital vanilla.

There is plenty of flavor-- and substance--to go around on this too often overlooked branch of 1970s jazz, and if you have dismissed music such as Street Lady, you just ain't listening.

another Laid-Back album from Donald Byrd.His Arrnagements&Feel make this ALbum as along with his other 70's output a must.His Grooves here capture a Scene&Vibe going on.I can Listen to His 70's Output all day&Night.another solid Production&Instrumentation on this set.you feel the Vibe going down.

Do you need some music for a sunny drive, whether down memory lane or creating new memories. Street Lady is outasight!!