“Do something,” producer Jean Red instructed drummer George Brown and bassist Robert “Cool” Bell during an early recording session in New York. “Say something! Sing something.”
That prompt in the late 1960s was what Cool & The Gang (a jazz group with a crackhorn section that evolved into funk and then into disco) needed to move. “Immediately from the top of my head,” said 73-year-old Brown about the early days of the group making instrumental tracks influenced by both James Moody and James Brown. “I’m just getting started and I have Bingo. It’s” raw burgers “and” chocolate buttermilk, “he added, referring to two memorable tracks. “It just flowed. And we’re just digging a ditch.”
For nearly 60 years, Cool & The Gang has released 25 albums, toured the world, playing Live Aid in 1985 and Glastonbury in 2011. The 12 top 10 singles are funk, disco and pop classics that underpin movies such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Legally.” Blond: “Jungle Boogie”, “Ladies Night”, “Hollywood Swinging”, 1980 Party Ansem “Celebration”. According to the website WhoSampled, these are the basis of hip-hop and have been sampled more than 1,800 times, including the impressive turns of Eric B. & Rakim’s “Don’t Sweat the Technique” and Nas’ “NY State of Mind.” (Questlove played A set of songs over 3 hours We feature group samples during the 2020 live stream. )
Still, Cool & The Gang hasn’t received the same praise as many of his time. They haven’t even reached the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot. why?
“We are asking the same question,” Bell, 71, said in another interview. Bassists and singers left the street gang on Imperial Road and joined the first version of the group in Jersey City, NJ in 1964.
This week, the new box set “The Albums Vol. 1: 1970-1978” discusses the band’s influence. With 199 tracks over 13 CDs, we are celebrating a transitional period that pushes the group to the limits of Megastar. (Part 2 covering the 80’s is scheduled for fall.)
Bell was in a video chat from Orlando, Florida, wearing a leopard print shirt, backed by a bass, a Cool & The Gang branded guitar, and framed gold and platinum records. He is an anime storyteller and is pleased to remember the early days of the band in Youngstown, Ohio. He and his younger brother Ronald Harris Bell, often called his Muslim name Harris Bayan, struck an empty paint can to create a rhythm.
Their father, Bobby, was a boxer who played with jazzmen Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. The monk later became Robert’s Godfather. Robert tried boxing, but he only lasted a year. When his family moved to Jersey City, he became friends with a local gangster.
The music eventually pulled him apart. The group sparked when Ronald visited the home of his high school classmate Robert “Spike” Mickens. Soon the Bell brothers wandered around Mickens’ house, Chur picked up the guitar and learned the one-note bass part at Herbie Mann’s Comin’Home Baby. His instinctive style became the rhythmic foundation of the group with the help of his more skilled brothers.
“I didn’t take the lesson. There is no such thing,” Bell said. “I’m just listening.”
They formed Jazz Birds, Jazziacs, Kool and the Flames, modified from a friend named Cool, after Bell’s street nickname. In 1969, they changed their name to Cool & The Gang, hoping to avoid trouble from James Brown and his famous flames.
The group found a manager, started gigs, learned Brown and Motown hits, and helped minor R & B stars on swings throughout town. “Now jazz and funk are together,” Bell said. The band’s live, mostly instrumental debut in 1970, “Cool & The Gang,” reflects this combination.
Cool & The Gang is prolific and their sound has evolved over time. Michael Neidus, global commercial manager for the British record label Demon Music Group, licensed the Cool & The Gang catalog from long-time label Universal Music, has separated the band’s more grooved phase of the ’70s. I decided to do it. He has worked frequently with producer Redd since the blockbuster era that began with “Ladies Night” in 1979 and “Celebration” in 1980.
“Overdo it all at once,” he said. “There are two clear periods in the band’s success.”
Even in the band’s first decade, it was clear that other musicians were paying close attention to their sound. In Indianapolis in the early ’70s, Funk, Inc. was studying early Cool & The Gang albums. Funk, Inc. interpolated “Kools Back Again” into its own “Kool Is Back”. It has undergone many memorable samplings.
“They threw good pockets,” Funk, Inc. guitarist Steve Weakley said in an interview. “They had a single note line in the melody.”
Throughout most of the band’s early days, Cool & The Gang had no well-meaning singers, and for some time it wasn’t a problem. When record executives demanded to create their own version of Manu Dibango’s hit “Soul Makossa,” Cool & The Gang said “Jungle Boogie” and “Funky Staff” during a one-day marathon rehearsal session in New York. , I came up with “Hollywood Swinging”. York for their “Wild and Peaceful” album.
“These guys could make a hit record without a singer,” said Pete Rock, a DJ and producer whose Bronx Jamaican family owned all the Cool & The Gang singles and albums. I am saying. “Funky like hell-that’s the only way to explain that rhythm section.”
Rock and the gang became indispensable as Bronx’s pioneering hip-hop DJ Kool Herc popularized the breakbeat separation acquired from records by other artists. For other music by other groups. “
By the late ’70s, Cool & The Gang had survived long enough to realize that if they found an elusive frontman, they could grow even bigger. Concert promoter Dick Griffey first proposed this idea, and the group hired James “JT” Taylor.
The last detail of “Ladies Night” turned out to be important — Meekaaeel MuhammadA member of the group’s songwriting team, has fleshed out the chorus with the counter-melody “Let’s celebrate”. It refers to the band’s next hit, “Celebration,” based on the idea of Ronald Harris Bell. “The truck had such a homely atmosphere, like grandma sitting on a porch with lemonade, as if it were somewhere in Alabama. The atmosphere of a rocking chair,” Bell said. Told. “One of the guys came up with that’yahoo!'”
“Celebration” is one of the best playlists of weddings and sporting events and one of the most famous pop songs. Playing at the International Space Station.. Tracks started a commercially prosperous period in the 80’s (“Get Down on It”, “Cherish”, “Fresh”), but after years of funky polyrhythms, disco and pop “a little”. It’s boring. What I’m saying, “Brown said. “In the end, I’m crazy about it, but it wasn’t like playing jazz or funk. These two genres, you can grow.”
The hits were almost exhausted by 1989, and the group continued to make albums and tour internationally from the 90’s to the 2000’s, replacing former members with young artists. In 2011, David Lee Roth saw Cool & The Gang perform at Glastonbury and invited him to open a band for Van Halen on the next year’s tour. According to tracking service Luminate, the group’s tracks have been streamed 2.8 billion times worldwide so far.
However, it has been difficult in the last few years. Ronald Harris Bell and saxophonist Dennis “Dee Tea” Thomas have died. Robert Bell lost his wife and another brother. When the pandemic occurred, the rest of the group had to terminate the tour schedule. When we talked about this time, Bell’s smile hung down and he began to ponder. “A lot of memories,” he said. “But we keep moving forward.”
The new album is scheduled for October, according to Brown, and the band is on the road again.
Perhaps it will eventually reach the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Bell smiled bitterly. “Yeah, well,” he said. “Maybe next year.”
