Jackson Five : Disco pioneers

[remicks]

*****


I bet this album was a shock to the pre teenage J5 fans :-P

GET IT TOGETHER
1973 !!!

The cut I want to focus on is

HUM ALONG AND DANCE

Ain't no words to this song .... you just daaancin on and on ...
Ain't no words to this song ... you just dance and hum along ...
Now..... DAAANCE ! ..

and then it's a solid 8:11 minute hard-core Norman Whitfield boogie

Features organ , lead giutar , ongoing high hat ...before finally bringing in a thumpin' big band drum style ( like SING SING SING --- Charlie Callelo )

Overall .....I'm thinking : BOHANNON !!!

*****

[stevieboy32808]

I gotta disagree. Jackson Five was mostly old school danceable RnB. It wasn't until they rebranded themselves The Jacksons that they started making disco music. You should check out their album "Destiny" and to a certain extent their 80's effort "Triumph" album.

[Bernie]

"Hum Along..." is superb. Hard to believe it's the Jackson Five. It's strange to hear a young Michael Jackson getting down.

The full version appears on Kurtis Blow Presents The History Of Rap - 1, which is highly recommended.

Amazon-U.S. | Amazon-U.K. | Amazon-Germany | Amazon-France

[markydefad]

I gotta disagree. Jackson Five was mostly old school danceable RnB. It wasn't until they rebranded themselves The Jacksons that they started making disco music. You should check out their album "Destiny" and to a certain extent their 80's effort "Triumph" album.

But you're forgetting--1975's #1 DISCO RECORD: "FOREVER CAME TODAY"

[Disco Funk]

But you're forgetting--1975's #1 DISCO RECORD: "FOREVER CAME TODA Y"

Forever Came Today is such a great track. The Disco-tech #3 mix is even better than the original album mix, because it emphasizes the instrumental parts in the second half. It sounds like it has the West Coast session regulars, like Melvin Ragin on guitar and James Gadson on drums.

I think of Hum And Dance Along as more of a funk track than a disco track. But I only like the first 3 minutes or so. The tom tom section just goes on and on and on. I was hoping that CD reissue of Get It Together on Hip-O with the 15 minute mix would feature more of the 3 minute groove, but it was just more tom toms :(

Disco Funk

[Casablanca]

I've just discovered 'Body Language (Do The Love Dance) from their Moving Violation LP. What a great funky track, it's made me want to explore more of their early albums. Any recommendations? Someone told me that there is also a remix of 'Body Language', does anyone know anything about it?

[Disco Funk]

Someone told me that there is also a remix of 'Body Language', does anyone know anything about it?

There is a re-edit that was released on 12" recently. Here's the link to a website with audio samples:

http://www.tunes.co.uk/tunes/featured/10562.html

Disco Funk

[originalbigm]

I've just discovered 'Body Language (Do The Love Dance) from their Moving Violation LP. What a great funky track, it's made me want to explore more of their early albums. Any recommendations? Someone told me that there is also a remix of 'Body Language', does anyone know anything about it?

Check out their 1974 LP Dancing Machine
Favourite cuts - Dancing Machine excellent funky track and a much better version than the one on the 1973 Get It Together LP ,What You Don't Know with it's latin beat flavour,I Am Love an excellent rocker that starts off as a slow easy ballad and transforms itself into a powerful almost psychedlic rock offering.:razz:

[remicks]

I gotta disagree. Jackson Five was mostly old school danceable RnB. It wasn't until they rebranded themselves The Jacksons that they started making disco music. You should check out their album "Destiny" and to a certain extent their 80's effort "Triumph" album.

---- Well when you call it old school danceable R&B ....you've just described what much of the disco of the earliest days was ....


.....and no need to wait way until the DESTINY album to hear The Jackson Five doing disco ..... although I agree they did some fine tunes on it and TRIUMPH . The Jacksons were a friend to disco all the way through the entire era ... from beginning to end ... 8)8)

As Marky points out,
the J5 were one of the very very first to reach number one on the disco charts

THE DISCO COMPILATION CONSENSUS TOP 44

7/5/75

1) FOREVER CAME TODAY - The Jackson Five
(Motown 45) (61 total points/ charts ABCDE (!) (Last week: #2; 2nd non-consecutive week @ #1)
2) DREAMING A DREAM - Crown Heights Affair
(De-Lite 45) (53/ABCD) (#1 last week)
3) WHAT A DIFF'RENCE A DAY MAKES - Esther Phillips
(Kudu 45) (45/ABCD) (#14)
4) FREE MAN - South Shore Commission
(Wand 45) (43/ACDE) (#3)

Thank GOD for the charts ....or I fear that without them were I to suggest that FOREVER CAME TODAY was a great disco tune ... the latter days would want to argue that idea too ... :roll:

Back to HUM AND DANCE ALONG ...without charts and DJ playlists from it's time .... we can't confirm this cut as "disco" per say ... disco was just about to invent itself right about then ..... so let's study the evidence:
We have an uptempo number called HUM AND DANCE ALONG.... obviously a song written with dancing in mind . DJ's would have loved its EIGHT minute + length ....and with its driving groove , obviously a Norman Whitfield jam ... (who would soon command the disco charts with The Undisputed Truth and Rose Rose etc. by refining this very sound ...) ...... it would be hard to imagine that this wasn't being played in places where people were dancing .... ( the places soon to be called "discos") ....

I have a feeling though that without the charts ( thank GOD, once again, for the charts) to prove otherwise , some at this point and age would try to argue that CARWASH was another one that never was disco either ..... .... ( "well ... it doesn't sound like "disco" " :p )

I think of Hum And Dance Along as more of a funk track than a disco track. :(Disco Funk

Now Disco Funk:D:p .... you want this to be identified only as a "funk" tune ..... why?? ...Is that because the Jackson Five were so firmly regarded as being a hard core "funk ' group !!!!
Or surely ..... you're not suggesting its not a disco tune because its lacking .. ...strings !!! :lol:

Well anyway .... I'm not saying its disco either because I think disco has yet to arrive ..... soon after this though ...
I am saying that when you try to figure out disco's lineage and you come to the year 1973 ... you can find it on this album by the Jackson 5 ...HUM ALONG AND DANCE ( a 4/4 tune which I can mix very easly into later disco tunes ) ...GET IT TOGETHER , DANCING MACHINE and MAMA I GOT A BRAND NEW THING ...they are each all about what disco is about .... the boogie !!!

>>> And speaking of "boogie" ....another big Motown release of this same time is also carving this disco path : BOOGIE DOWN by Eddie Kendricks.
Again you won't find it on any disco lists then ( 'cause they didnt exist yet ! :p:D) .... but even a casual listen confirms the obvious
...disco was now being birthed ....


including within the halls of Motown .... !!


*****

[remicks]

*****

Michael Jackson has always been a friend to disco. :icon_cool: :icon_cool: :icon_cool::icon_cool::icon_cool:

All the way through the entirety of it..... from the beginning to the end . Maybe more than any other artist. (I'm thinking this is so)

It'd be nice if someone could put together a thread chronicling his disco HIStory. (hi marky! )


In the meantime, here's this old thread.


and

HURRAY FOR YOUTUBE !!!




my computer has no sound :icon_cry: (ever since I tried to listen to Stephen's show !!! :icon_confused::icon_confused: :icon_exclaim:) ....

so I'm not sure which of these provides a better sound quality ...




*****

[kdavid13]

In the meantime, here's this old thread.


so I'm not sure which of these provides a better sound quality ...




*****

The 2nd one has the best sound quality...and what a funky song it is !!!! :icon_cool:

[remicks]

****


thank you Kris



"funky" ? ...... or "funky/disco" ????


*****

[markydefad]

You just know that "Hum Along & Dance" was played in all those seminal disco venues like the Sanctuary and the Loft. Even though I personally never knew the record until I started seeing it on the "proto-disco" lists and bought it on their "Anthology" cd-- it was a perfect record for the dance floor.

I watched the 1970 movie of "The Boys In The Band" last weekend and was reminded of what was considered "dance" music to the Gay crowd in the late Sixties as exemplified by the brief snippets of music played at the birthday party--some Martha & the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Wilson Pickett and a couple others that I can't recall right now. It's gotta be early stages of Alzheimers! :icon_eek:

Add Burt Bacharach's instrumental version of "The Look Of Love" and the Harpers Bizarre version of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes." Oh and something by Sergio Mendes called "The Frog."

[Cdnbob]

I've had the "GIT" J5 album ever since it came out and "Hum Along..." was never one of my favorite tracks on that album. My favorites were "Dancing Machine, Don't Say Goodbye Again, Reflections, It's Too Late To Change The Time" and "You Need Love Like I Do".

[Disco Funk]

Life of the Party from Dancing Machine is another great dance floor anthem from '74.



There was also an unreleased track that eventually came out as an instrumental on Magic Disco Machine Vol.1. On that LP it was called 'Jumbo Sam', and from what I've read, the original was called 'Jungle Sam'. It was probably recorded around '73.



Disco Funk

[thommy2458]

Forever Came Today is such a great track. The Disco-tech #3 mix is even better than the original album mix, because it emphasizes the instrumental parts in the second half. It sounds like it has the West Coast session regulars, like Melvin Ragin on guitar and James Gadson on drums.

I think of Hum And Dance Along as more of a funk track than a disco track. But I only like the first 3 minutes or so. The tom tom section just goes on and on and on. I was hoping that CD reissue of Get It Together on Hip-O with the 15 minute mix would feature more of the 3 minute groove, but it was just more tom toms :(

Disco Funk

Disco-Do you know if this version was released on any of the CD compilations recently? I really want to track down this mix because it's been mentioned here before and it got me interested to hear the difference.I hate to have to track down that Lp only.Also another
"disco"track that's really picked up alot of steam in the last few years is
this: YouTube - Jackson 5 - The Mirrors Of My Mind but it is not
the mix I refer too.The bootlegs emphasize the dancier elements very
nicely but even the original is good "pre disco".
Thom

[Disco Funk]

Which track were you referring to? Forever Came Today or Hum Along & Dance. The remix of Forever Came Today was a bonus cut on the Moving Violation CD. It was paired up with Dancing Machine

Dancing Machine/Moving Violation

I couldn't check out your link. Youtube seems to be having technical difficulties. It went down a few minutes ago.

Disco Funk

Edit: LOL! One of those weird synchronicity moments just occurred. I was watching a recording of Quincy ME I taped today, just now, and the woman says something about a guy being the 'life of the party' if he's drinking. This episode is about an alcoholic doctor. It always freaks me out when something like that happens. :)

[thommy2458]

Thanks Disco-It was the "Forever.." mix you were talking about.I'll order the "Moving.." CD today-thanks again
Thom

[Funky Dude]

I totally agree The Jackson 5 are one of the first pioneers of what was later to be dubbed as "disco music". I strongly say their first big hit "I Want You Back" back in 1969 holds one of the crucial roots to disco music and that is that distinctive funky scratchy rhythm guitar which was quite a few years ahead of its time and is similar to the scratchy rhythm guitar sounds in disco songs from the mid/late 70s and even early 80s like Kool & The Gang's "Celebration"!

[Disco Funk]

Thanks Disco-It was the "Forever.." mix you were talking about.I'll order the "Moving.." CD today-thanks again
Thom

You're welcome! It's definitely a CD worth getting. You can tell it wasn't made in America because they actually give you your money's worth, versus American CDs that prefer to only put on one LP.

I don't really want to go on record and say the Jacksons were disco pioneers. There were so many other artists who were doing dance music at the same time, and philadelphia was churning out music that sounded more like the final version of disco as early as '73. Not to mention that the Jacksons weren't writing or producing their material, they were just performers working for the people at Motown.

The scratchy guitar lick was used before I Want You Back. James Brown did it on There Was A Time when he performed that live at the Apollo in 67, which had been a reworking of the outro to Let Yourself Go, recorded in '66.



Here's a live version of the track from '68



There were probably others even earlier, but James definitely upped the bpms and pushed black funk closer to disco with this track.

Disco Funk

[Funky Dude]

Thanks for the info Disco Funk.

Just realized there was a track by a latin rock'n'roll band The Applejacks from 1959 enitled "Rocka-Conga" which had full on scratchy guitar throughout the song which sounded very much like that of mid 70s guitar scratchy disco songs. Unfortunately there's no clip on YouTube to show as an example. I discovered this song watching the American Bandstand 33 1/3 anniversary special which I have on beta, they showed an excerpt of them performing this song and the cameramen were full on doing a synchonised latin dance to this song while operating the cameras which was funny.

[Disco Funk]

I'm always pleasantly surprised to find earlier versions of what would become funk or disco, or at least components of those types of music. I think a lot of it had to do with influences of music they heard growing up, and then applying it to the music they would later play themselves. The congas and bongos were pretty big in the late 50s. I don't know who specifically initiated the craze, but I'm guessing some of it had to do with the interest in mambo music and Desi Arnaz on I Love Lucy. Scratchy guitars probably came about many many years ago, probably used more for percussive effect than anything else.

Disco Funk