Bobbi Humphrey wasn’t the primary feminine musician to signal with Blue Word Information – pianist Jutta Hipp and singers Dodo Greene and Sheila Jordan preceded her – however the Texas flutist made an even bigger impression commercially, scoring 4 hit albums and an equal variety of charting singles for the enduring jazz label as her profession took flight within the early Nineteen Seventies. Her most profitable recording was 1974’s Satin Doll, her second Blue Word collaboration with producer Larry Mizell, the mastermind behind her earlier studio album Blacks & Blues.
Raised in Dallas, Texas, Barbara Ann “Bobbi” Humphrey was recent out of school when, heeding the recommendation of bebop trumpet legend Dizzy Gillespie whom she met at a jazz competition, Humphrey relocated to New York in the summertime of 1971. Arriving by Greyhound bus together with her flute and $400, she met up together with her older cousin, Eddie Preston, who performed trumpet with Duke Ellington’s band. Preston launched her to Ellington, who invited the beginner to jam with him. Information of the proficient younger flutist unfold quick. Inside per week of her arrival within the Large Apple, 20-year-old Humphrey had shared the stage with jazz legends Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Cannonball Adderley.
Take heed to Bobbi Humphrey’s Satin Doll now.
Shortly afterward, Humphrey discovered herself with a report deal after dropping off a demo tape on the workplaces of Blue Word Information. Stunned by the younger flutist’s soulful virtuosity, the label’s then-president Dr. George Butler immediately signed her, producing her first two Blue Word albums, 1971’s Flute-In and 72’s Dig This!, each largely dedicated to soul and jazz covers. Then in 1973, Butler handed the manufacturing reins to her third album Blacks & Blues to Los Angeles-based Larry Mizell.
Working first with Donald Byrd in 1972 on the trumpeter’s million-selling Black Byrd album, Mizell gave Blue Word a brand new sound for the 70s that interlaced jazz, funk, and soul parts with vocal choruses and pop music constructions. After his success with Byrd, Mizell gave the same makeover to Humphrey, whose ensuing 1973 album Blacks & Blues was a shock hit in each the US R&B and pop charts. Inspired by the general public response to her new sound, Humphrey reunited with Mizell and his crew for Satin Doll, recorded in the summertime of 1974.
As with Blacks & Blues, Mizell and his co-producer, Chuck Davis, used a cadre of session musician luminaries – together with guitarist Melvin “Wah Wah Watson” Ragin, bassist Chuck Rainey, and drummer Harvey Mason – to create a variety of backing tracks for Humphrey to improvise over.
Opening with the tone-setting “New York Times” – a monitor outlined by a chanted vocal chorus, layered synth textures, and atmospheric sound results drizzled over a hypnotic groove – the album provided a number of compelling widescreen jazz-funk items, together with the playful “Fun House,” a No. 82 US R&B hit single. Providing distinction, the languid ballads “Rain Again” and “San Francisco Nights” highlighted Humphrey’s virtuosity in a slower setting. The flutist additionally revealed her ability on two excellent cowl variations: Stevie Marvel’s “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” and a cinematic funk model of Duke Ellington’s evergreen “Satin Doll,” the latter supposed as a tribute to its composer, who died earlier in 1974.
Regardless of her small stature – she solely stands at 4’ 11” tall – Bobbi Humphrey turned a bonafide large of jazz-funk music largely because of Satin Doll, which pictured the flutist’s first little one, daughter Ricci Lynn, on its entrance cowl. The album rocketed to No. 5 on the US R&B Albums chart but additionally proved an enormous crossover success, peaking at No. 30 on The Billboard 200 throughout a powerful eighteen-week chart run that made it one in every of Blue Word’s best-selling albums of the 70s.
Since then, Satin Doll has continued to draw new audiences by means of reissues and artists similar to Ludacris, Black Nubian, Marsha Ambrosius, and DJ Shadow sampling and recycling a few of its tracks to make new music. Along with Blacks And Blues, it stays a go-to album in Humphrey’s discography.
Take heed to Bobbi Humphrey’s Satin Doll now.