Gary Bartz (born September 26, 1940) – Swing Thing (1977)
From the NTU Troop founder's classic Music Is My Sanctuary LP, this hard-hitting jazz-funk jam was co-written and produced by the Mizell Brothers.
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Saxophonist, composer and producer Gary Bartz has played with many legends and helped create countless jazz and jazz-funk classics during his seven decade-spanning career.
Born in Baltimore, his parents owned a jazz nightclub in the city. He studied music at Juilliard in New York City and from 1962-64 participated in Charles Mingus’ Jazz Workshop, where he performed with McCoy Tyner and Eric Dolphy. He played with Max Roach before joining Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. In 1968, he joined Expansions, Tyner’s first post-Coltrane Quartet group, and played on ten of his subsequent albums. Two years later in mid-1970, he became a member of Miles Davis’ band.
His first solo albums were released on Milestone Records, starting with Libra in 1968 and Another Earth in 1969, which featured Pharoah Sanders on tenor tax and Charles Tolliver on trumpet on its epic title track, in addition to Reggie Workman on bass, Stanley Cowell on piano, drummer Freddie Watts, and Bartz on alto sax.
In the late sixties, Bartz founded his own group, the NTU Troop. Mixing soul-jazz with African rhythms and jazz-funk, they were first credited on his 1969 live album Home!, which was recorded at a Left Bank Jazz Society concert in Baltimore. A highlight was the superb jam “Rise,” with Albert Dailey on piano, Woody Shaw on trumpet, Bob Cunningham on bass, and Rashied Ali on drums.
For their 1973 LP Follow, The Medicine Man, Bartz wrote and produced the funky jam “Dr. Follow’s Dance.” It was one of the final two tracks to be recorded for the album, laid down in New York City during June, 1973, the only two to feature Hector Centano on guitar and Hubert Eaves III on keyboards. A decade later, Eaves would perform alongside James “D-Train” Williams in the duo D-Train.
The LP also included Stafford James on bass and electric bass, Howard King on drums, and Andy Bey on electric piano. All three contributed vocals and percussion.
Bartz and the NTU Troop released the concept album Singerella - A Ghetto Fairy Tale in 1974. Its title track was a lyrically powerful portrait of ghetto life, and the LP’s superb closing anthem “Nation Time” was another standout cut. Both were written, arranged, and produced by Bartz, and mixed by Larry Mizell.
In 1977, Bartz signed with Capitol Records. His debut album for the label, Music Is My Sanctuary, was released that same year and co-produced by Fonce and Larry Mizell along with Bartz and James Carter.
It featured his NTU Troop drummer Howard King, but also several other legendary session musicians including guitarists Melvin “Wah Wah Watson” Ragin and David T. Walker, and James Gadson on drums. Also on hand were Bill Summers and the great James Mtume on percussion, Eddie Henderson and Ray Brown on trumpet, and Stevie Wonder’s former wife Syreeta Wright on vocals.
The album’s sophisticated, smooth jazz-funk lead single “Love Ballad” (written by Skip Scarborough and featuring Syreeta on vocals) became a crossover hit, reaching #15 on the R&B charts. But the masterpiece cut on Music Is My Sanctuary was arguably the super funky jam “Swing Thing.” Co-written by all three Mizell Brothers (Fonce, Larry, and their brother Rodney), it came out swinging hard and didn’t let up for nearly seven minutes of amazing jazz-funk.
Happy Birthday to the great Gary Bartz.
#jazz #funk #MizellBrothers #NTUTroop #GaryBartz