'MYSTIC VOYAGE' - DISCOVERING THE MUSIC OF THE LEGENDARY ROY AYERS - (PART 1)

I'm Dj'ing at the Roy Ayers gig @ The Jazz Cafe, Camden, London tonight (30th January 2009) and whilst most people know me as a Hip Hop Dj there's a whole load of other music I like to collect, listen to and play out.

During the Christmas period I was enjoying a bit of quality daydreaming (like you do when you're most chilled), thinking about how I first discovered Roy Ayers and his music and how the love for his music developed.

Yes I know everyone's gonna have their favorite Roy Ayers LP or song, but this is my own personal, journey discovering the legendary sound of Roy Ayers.

For the most part discovering Roy has been during a period when there was no internet to tell you his whole Discography, I didn't even have the luxuary of a big network of music friends that I have now. In those days it was just me and Matt Smooth (who I went to school with and is DJ'ing the gig the night before) discovering records, tapes and radio shows from a handful of like minded funksters.

The 80's

I discovered Roy Ayers not during the cooler fusion sound of the 70's (Come on!!! I was too young) but in the era of the electronic synthesizer, during the mid-eighties (The period when I first started buying vinyl from places like Bluebird Records in Luton)

At the time I was a big fan of Martin Collins's soulful Chiltern Radio show and Robbie Vincent's Sunday 'Soul Show' show which I used to tape passionately every week. So I think the first song I heard by Roy was Fast Money (1983). The only problem was it was on a school tape and I wasn't sure who all the artists were ?!!? So more of that later.

So fast forward to 1985 and I probably made my first official note of Roy and his music listening to the LP You Might be Surprised.

In those days not all shops stocked this type of vinyl so after making a note of some of my favorite music I often made what I thought were exciting trips on the bus to Luton!!..... to Bluebird Records where Gary and Tim (who later went on to run Soulsense) would serve up and play the best black music being released from that era. These were great times, always a good place to visit and it was my first experience of 'hanging out' and learning about music in record shops. Something that has been a big part of my life ever since.

As an 18 year old and before I had discovered much of Roy Ayers, I remember being impressed with the fact he could not only sing (his silky voice was unique), but he also played the vibraphone.

I have to admit I didn't immediately see someone who played the vibraphone as cool, but he certainly changed my preconceived ideas!

Stand out tracks on this LP were the spoken word and computer inspired Programmed for Love



And the song 'Slip and Slide'


It's interesting to note that at this point in the 80's when home computers like the Spectrum, BBC and Commodore 64 were being bought by parents for their eager kids, that there were quite a few songs like Programmed for Love which had references to computers on them. The Zapp band's vocoder led Computer Love also springs to mind.

So that was the first LP I bought, but, going back to my first experience (above), the first Roy Ayers 12" I bought was probably Fast Money (On Ichiban, originally a Hip Hop label from Georgia US, which also and had the excellent Black Family on the B side ). Fast Money was originally on Roy's Lots of Love LP from 1983. I absolutely love this track and it could well be one of my favorite Roy Ayers tracks.



The track has such a great synth bassline which still inspires me today, it was made to dance to! So I reckon I bought this in the late 80's from David's Music in Letchworth, Herts via Mail Order, after I had discovered the name of the track on the tape I had made 4 or 5 years earlier!! Sometimes music that you love is revealed to you later than you wish, but at least I eventually found out.

B-Side to my first 12" - Black Family - which uses a sample from Fela Kuti's I.T.T.



Continuing to listen to the radio and wanting to support Roy's next LP, in 1987 I bought I'm the One (For your Love Tonight). Not particularly Roy's best LP but there was still one song I had on repeat when I bought it, which was the dreamy Blue Summer. (Unfortunately I couldn't find a decent Youtube link?!!?)

In the same year Roy also appeared on another track that was getting a lot of air play Miles Jaye - Lets Start Love Over


This was another song and LP that got repeated on my Mum and Dad's home stereo and I loved Roy's vibraphone solo 3 minutes into the song!!