reuben wilson - hold on, i'm comin'

i bought this blue note compilation called "the lost grooves" in a charity shop along with some other compos but this one said, get this now right at the cover. the blurb on it says "rare and previously unissued slices of funk from the vaults of blue note '67-'70".

now granted that this record was put out in '95, so these cuts must have been explored later on but there are some heavyweight players featured as main artists and of course as sidemen. this track which kicks the compilation right off had me locked on and when i was going through the cd to see what was on it, i kept scrolling back to this track.

that's mostly because it kicks off in a right fashion from the get-go and with funk like this that spans for 8 minutes, it's a good sign the arrangement have enough faith to start heavy and it doesn't lose that weight. this track of course is the isaac hayes/david porter composition "hold on, i'm comin'" as made famous by sam & dave.

after falling in love with this track i did some small research on how something this good could have been left off  a regular album. i found out later that it wasn't made at a regular album session hence why it wasn't on "love bug" originally (but it was added as a bonus track on the '97 reissue).

this track is done with an all-star cast with lee morgan on trumpet, george coleman on tenor saxophone, grant green on guitar, jimmy lewis on bass. lewis is uncredited on the liner notes of the album, i looked it up on discogs to find who played bass i heard a bass line on the track and wondered who it was.

i thought it was wilson playing the bass notes on his organ, as i've heard that in certain jazz combos (without a bass player) an organ player fills in the lower end. all of which, including wilson do a great effort on this and all their solo moments are top notch. the best moment has to be right between green's solo and wilson's second solo as there is a slight calm before the storm thing going on.

i left of introducing one and it's of course idris muhammed on drums and his rhythm is relentless and outstanding on it. infact his groove on this have inspired me to try to work it in my sets as this track is too funky not to be played with house music or broken beats or anything with a funky touch.

buy here (7digital)