When Roy Ayers rebooted his sonic id circa 1970, his intentionality was unequivocal. Although initially impressed by jazz nice Lionel Hampton (his childhood function mannequin as a vibraphonist and bandleader), Ayers had grown stressed with jazz because it was narrowly outlined by purists. Instrumental/improvisational mastery and accessibility weren’t, as ideologues inferred, mutually unique. With Miles Davis’s electrified experiments boldly blazing the path, Ayers envisioned a music by which his personal prodigious jazz chops may fluidly converse with funk, R&B, rock, et al., and be ever current, relatable to all audiences. Ubiquitous.
Roy Ayers Ubiquity was extra than simply an apt band rebrand. It was an invite to openness as artistic methodology; no matter felt proper – fuzz pedal distortion, clean pop tune covers, Black liberation anthems, ethereal vocal numbers, dance grooves – was proper. Roy didn’t simply play the vibes, the heat of his sound outlined “vibes” nicely earlier than the time period’s present admission into common parlance. And although his ’70s oeuvre teems with basic materials, no Roy Ayers Ubiquity album exudes this high quality fairly like 1976’s beloved All people Loves the Sunshine.
Fading up on Roy and the band as they gleefully chant its title chorus, “Hey-Uh What You Say Come On,” the LP’s lead monitor, exemplifies the group’s jazz-funk jubilance. Ayers was an intuitively collaborative bandleader and composer who prioritized spontaneity within the recording course of, usually constructing tunes off catch-phrases and a roving, modular strategy to putting chords. Which is how, for all its groove-centricity, Ubiquity strikes inside its tight rhythmic confines with such a free wielding spirit. It’s what propels Roy’s fast soloing on “The Golden Rod” like some wonderful quasar burst, and injects requires accountability and motivational focus like “People and the World” and “It Ain’t Your Sign It’s Your Mind” with their celebratory vitality. Even a captivating oddity like “Lonesome Cowboy” – that includes Roy ad-libbing in a rustic twang over drummer Doug Rhodes’ syncopated breakdowns – is organized with sufficient unfastened, funky attract to have been championed by early Bronx hip-hop DJs excavating for unusually addictive beats.
The place Ayers and firm dial again the exuberance in direction of the mellow they’re really at their most chic. Led by Roy’s ethereal vocals and shimmering vibraphone, “The Third Eye” is a dreamlike meditation on the religious journey during which Justo Almario’s saxophone and Roy and Philip Woo’s electrical piano work ascend to celestial accompaniment. It’s however a prelude, nonetheless, to the beautiful title lower. Sans soloing completely, “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”’s indelible vocals (courtesy of Roy, together with sultry feminine co-lead Deborah “Chicas” Darby) and keyboard hooks (a gorgeously languid piano phrase, a squealing, bent-note synth) comprise an ideal recording, the Platonic evocation of soulful serenity. It’s simply the one hottest monitor inside Ayers’ huge repertoire, having been sampled countlessly, and types the premise of his oft cited tribute as godfather of neo-soul. The truth that it was recorded after hours, previous midnight, and never even in Ayers’ native, sun-kissed Los Angeles, however at Electrical Girl Studios in peak-grimy mid-’70s New York Metropolis, is just additional testomony to his present for summoning a sense. And to his prophetic insistence that vibes transcend all.
Take heed to The Roy Ayers Ubiquity album All people Loves the Sunshine now.
