Alphonse Mouzon (November 21, 1948 - December 25, 2016) – Funky Snakefoot (1974)
The musical genius who helped invent jazz-funk drumming wrote this phenomenally funky title track to his second solo LP, released on Blue Note.
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Alphonse Mouzon was a genius multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter, arranger and producer best known for his pioneering jazz-funk drumming as an original member of Weather Report and Larry Coryell’s Eleventh House. He also had a long career as sideman to other artists including McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock, and leader on his own acclaimed solo albums.
Mouzon was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He started playing drums in high school. Years later, one of his classmates posted the following memories of him at this age:
“Alphonse and I go way back to the fifties. We grew up four streets apart. His mother (Mrs. Emma), got my mother a job as a cook with her at the military college (The Citadel) of Charleston, SC. We both were drummers in the Bonds-Wilson High School band. Alphonse was a great teacher. He always pushed us to play better. He even bought difficult drum books and worked with us on playing them. Alphonse tuned my snare drum and gave me lessons. Every year we would audition for the All-State Band at South Carolina State College. Alphonse always made a perfect score (4) every year.”
After graduation he moved to New York City in 1966 to attend the City College of New York where he studied drama and music. He was also certified as a Lab Technician at the Manhattan Medical School.
He scored a gig as a percussionist in the orchestra for the Broadway musical Promises, Promises, which opened on December 1, 1968. Mouzon then played with artists including Roberta Flack, Roy Ayers, Gil Evans, Les McCann, and Stevie Wonder, and eventually toured with McCoy Tyner. In 1970 he joined Wayne Shorter, Miroslav Vitouš, and Joe Zawinul as one of the original members of the jazz fusion group Weather Report. He played with them for a year before signing a solo contract with Blue Note Records.
His debut solo LP The Essence Of Mystery was recorded in 1972 and released the following year.
It was full of beautiful jazz-funk jams, from its epic title track to the uplifting cut “Thank You Lord.” Mouzon was featured on vocals and played drums, percussion, and keyboards including clavinet and Mellotron. In an interview conducted for its liner notes, he searched for words to describe his sound before explaining that “it has a gospel/folk quality, a rock feeling…I guess you’d call it Black rock.”
In 1974 he released his second Blue Note album Funky Snakefoot (1974), recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York City. It further cemented his status as one of the label’s major jazz-funk talents, alongside Donald Byrd and Bobbi Humphrey who were both collaborating with their producers the Mizell Brothers. Mouzon arranged and produced Funky Snakefoot all by himself, and wrote most of it, plus laying down vocals and leading his band.
The lineup featured Randy Brecker on trumpet, trombonist Barry Rogers, Andy Gadsden on tenor sax, Harry Whitaker on piano and clavinet, Leon Pendarvis on electric piano and organ, guitarist Richie Resnicoff, Mark Harowitz on pedal steel guitar and banjo, Gary King on electric bass, Ray Armando on congas and bongos, Angel Allende and Steve Berrios on percussion, and Mouzon on drums, vocals, synthesizer, and tack piano.
Highlights included the stellar synthesizer workout opening cut “I've Given You My Love” which was written by Mouzon’s nephew Mark Langford, and the funky love song “I Gotta Have You.” The ultra-funky, heartfelt autobiographical jam “The Beggar” was written by his sister Mary Highsmith, and the phenomenal Lenny Kravitz-esque rocker “Oh Yes I Do” was also written by Langford and released as the B-side to the album’s epic, funky title track.
Langford’s two tracks were the only songs he wrote that were ever recorded, which is a shame because they were such masterpieces.
From 1972-75, Mouzon played drums in the jazz-funk group The Eleventh House, which was led by guitarist Larry Coryell.
Their debut studio album Introducing The Eleventh House with Larry Coryell was recorded in 1973 and released in May, 1974 by Vanguard Records.
Mouzon wrote two of its tracks, the album’s energetic closing cut “Right on, Y’all” and the superb jam “The Funky Waltz,” which became a staple of the group’s live sets.
In 1976, Mouzon toured Europe with his Alphonse Mouzon All-Star Band, featuring Gary Bartz on sax, Stu Goldberg on keyboards, and Welton Gite on electric bass. They wowed audiences with energetic live performances of tracks including “Nyctophobia” and “Virtue,” which burnished his reputation as one of the most powerful jazz-funk drummers of the era.
As disco entered the mainstream in the late 70s, Mouzon produced a disco studio group called Poussez! for Vanguard Records. Their self-titled debut album was released in 1979 and was entirely a Mouzon production (produced, arranged, and conducted by, plus “all keyboards, synthesizers, bass synthesizer, drums, percussion, vocals”), with Randy Brecker among the guest musicians and several female backing vocalists (The Poussez Singers), two of whom may or may not have been featured on the cover. Patrick Adams’ longtime partner Christine Wiltshire (of Musique, Class Action and Phreek fame) was the group’s lead vocalist.
The album’s standout track was the sexy anthem “Come On And Do It,” which had an even better 12” extended version. It was remixed by legendary NYC DJ Roy Thode, who was the resident DJ at the Ice Palace in Cherry Grove on Long Island and later spun at Studio 54, the Paradise Garage, and The Saint before his untimely death from an overdose in 1982.
In the early eighties, Mouzon played on several of Herbie Hancock’s disco-funk flavored albums, including Monster (1980), Mr. Hands (1980), and Magic Windows (1981). Hancock in turn played keyboards on Mouzon’s 1981 LP By All Means, which also featured Freddie Hubbard on flugelhorn, Lee Ritenour on guitar, and the horn section from the Hawaiian jazz-funk band Seawind.
The album’s opening cut “Do I Have To?” was a superb funky groove, but its masterpiece was the thirteen and a half-minute title track, a flawless jazz-funk jam and roller disco anthem all in one.
Happy Heavenly 75th Birthday to the great Alphonse Mouzon.
Further info:
“Alphonse Mouzon has never cared a whole lot for labels,” Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1991.
“Alphonse Mouzon, Jazz and Fusion Drummer, Dies at 68,” obituary, The New York Times, December 28, 2016.
“Alphonse Mouzon,” by Bob Henrit, MikeDolbear.com, October 14, 2019.
#soul #jazz #funk #disco #AlphonseMouzon