The Lyman Woodard Organization - 1975 - Saturday Night Special

The Lyman Woodard Organization 

1975

Saturday Night Special

01. Saturday Night Special (Part I) 2:50
02. Saturday Night Special (Part II) 4:03
03. Joy Road 4:54
04. Belle Isle Daze (Part I) 4:10
05. Belle Isle Daze (Part II) 3:21
06. Creative Musicians 3:07
07. Cheeba (Part I) 5:29
08. Cheeba (Part II) 4:26
09. Allen Barnes 2:45
10. On Your Mind 3:52
11. Help Me Get Away 3:47

Alto Saxophone – Norma Bell
Drums, Vocals – Leonard King
Electric Guitar, Electric Bass – Ron English
Electric Piano, Organ, Mellotron – Lyman Woodard

Percussion – Lorenzo "Mr. Rhythm" Brown
Percussion – Bud Spangler

Release from press kit dated June 6, 1975 indicates that 1000 copies were pressed in first run and "orders have been rushed to the pressing plant for 2000 more units".

One of the most remarkable things about Saturday Night Special, the 1975 debut album by the Lyman Woodard Organisation, is how two musicians - accompanied by various sessions drummers - could make such a rich and layered set. It still impresses that Lyman Woodard and Ron English could create so many superbly evocative and cinematic jazz-fusion workouts almost on their own.

Saturday Night Special is certainly a contemporary jazz cult classic album if there ever was one. Merging the heart and soul of Detroit jazz and rhythm & blues while also tossing in a little Latin music, keyboardist Lyman Woodard was at the forefront of defining an instrumental identity for the Motor City on this recording. With top-notch guitarist Ron English, saxophonist Norma Jean Bell, drummer Leonard King, and percussionists Lorenzo Brown and Bud Spangler, Woodard provided solid, head-nodding groove music punctuated by heady, at times spacy jazz improvisation that set the standard for any rival or modern-day jam band. Although he became an organist exclusively, Woodard added Mellotron and electric piano to his arsenal for this date. The muddy production values diminish the overall quality of the sound, but the music itself is undeniably unique, and set apart from the CTI recordings or the fusion music Miles Davis was producing in this mid-'70s time period. The two-part title track is an industrial mythic anthem signifying a steadily streaming automobile production line within a slow, slinky melody via Woodard's various keyboards, flute, and handclaps, a chicken scratch synthesizer insert by the leader, followed by a funky electric bass solo and a jam. "Belle Isle Daze" and "Cheeba" are also dual part pieces, the former a light samba cum boogaloo with Woodard's organ and synth gliding alongside the guitar of English, the latter a straight Latin groove with Woodard's burning B-3 and the percussionists working out in Afro-Cuban fashion. The most beautiful track is "Joy Road," a soul ballad with sighing, serene synth and the lilting alto sax of Bell. King wrote the song of self-determination "Creative Musicians" in a choppy beat as he sings "keep on rollin' right along," while "Allen Barnes," a tribute to Detroit's enduring saxophonist , is a mix of Milestones meeting Jimmy Smith. English, an unsung hero of post-Kenny Burrell guitardom, penned and leads out on the melodies of the commercial tune "On Your Mind" and the more complex "Help Me Get Away," a complex, churning, jazz-oriented piece in 5/4 time that reflects the bop aesthetic of the '50s that brought so many Detroit musicians into prominence. Immediately after Woodard's death in 2009, the Wax Poetics label reissued this recording on limited-edition vinyl, made the tracks and unreleased material available for downloading, and reissued Saturday Night Special on CD. It's a testament not only to the vibrancy of the Detroit scene and what Woodard offered as one of the forefathers of the burgeoning fusion movement, but more importantly, it signifies how local Detroit musicians prevailed against adversity to keep their traditions very much alive and well.

Possibly the best known of Strata’s releases, The Lyman Woodard Organization’s ‘Saturday Night Special’ is rightly heralded as a jazz fusion classic. Recorded in 1975, ‘Saturday Night Special’ features organ, electric piano and Mellotron by bandleader Lyman Woodard

alongside guitar and bass by Ron English, with drums and percussion by Leonard King, Bud Spangler & Lorenzo "Mr. Rhythm" Brown respectively. Despite the fairly sparse instrumentation, ‘Saturday Night Special’ lays down an impressive wall of sound, powerfully atmospheric in its almost low-fi aesthetic. Hinting at more traditional jazz, rhythm & blues, afrocuban styles and more, the uniqueness of this album is surely in its feel: summoning up images of a vast industrial landscape, assembly lines and urban decay. In other words, this record sounds like Detroit.

No great album artwork is complete without a good story to match, and ‘Saturday Night Special’ does not disappoint. Snapped by photographer and political activist Leni Sinclair (responsible for seminal pictures of Miles Davis, Fela Kuti and John Coltrane and many others), the cover image shows the contents of Lyman Woodard’s pockets placed on the hotel bed after a show: cigarette papers, cash and a pistol.

Ron English - 2015 - Fish Feet

Ron English

2015

Fish Feet

01. You Make Me Feel Brand New
02. Fishfeet
03. Meadowlark
04. Bees
05. Yet And Still
06. Ultima Linda
07. I Surrender, Dear

Alto Saxophone – Norma Jean Bell
Bass – Ed Pickens
Percussion – Charles Moore
Drums – Danny Spencer
Drums – George Davidson
Guitar – Ron English
Organ – Lyman Woodard
Percussion – Leonard King
Piano – Kenny Cox
Soprano Saxophone – Larry Nozero

Fish Feet is guitarist Ron English’s only date as a leader,which is remarkable for a career spanning more than 50 years—a career that has placed him in the company of legends of rock and R&B. From garage rock roots as a founding member of the Woolies, to tours backing the Four Tops, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and Mary Wilson, English has enjoyed a storied life in music, effortlessly moving between genres with chameleon-like malleability.

Jazz, however, is where English found his calling with 1970s work on Detroit’s Tribe and Strata labels that blended stylessuch as funk, bebop, post-bebop and the freedom sound of the jazz avant-garde. It was a period of great “self-determination” he says, due to both labels’ reliance on artist autonomy and a do-it-yourself ethic that ensured if great effort was applied to any endeavour, the output would match. Fish Feet was such an effort.

Recorded with a small ensemble of Strata brethren including Kenny Cox, Lyman Woodard, Larry Nozero and co-producer Charles Moore, English describes Fish Feet as something of a concept album—a romantic fantasy about longing for love. The Thom Bell and Linda Creed composition, “You Make Me Feel Brand New,” is a wonderful piece coming out of the R&B world and evidence of English’s broad taste, balanced by the group’s mutual love of the emotional weight of the music of Charles Mingus. Then there was the funk, which George Clinton and the Ohio Players were doing at neighbouring Westbound Records.“

“Funk was in the air, and we did have to have a little bit of funk with what we were doing,” English says. “That’s what Fish Feet was about.”English penned all of the album’s original compositions, such as the lilting “Meadowlark” and the bluesy funk of the title track, and recruited a stellar horn section that included Nozero, Phil Ranelin, Norma JeanBell and Marcus Belgrave. Nozero’s work on “Bees” and “Yet And Still” are among the highlights of the album, along with Bell’s solo on “You Make Me Feel Brand New.” English’s own unaccompanied acoustic playing on the Harry Barris and Gordon Clifford standard “I Surrender Dear” provides an exquisite close to a long-unreleased jewel of an album, and a piece that is an example of why the Strata canon is an essential entry in the story of Detroit music.

“We tried to hit all aspects,” English says. “That’s whythe label was called Strata, “because it was operating on several different Strata—several different layers.”

As he reflects on recording the album, English is sad that many of his collaborators have died, unable to witness the fruits of their labor. Cox, Nozero and Woodard have passed on, “and I just hate that,” he says. Also gone is co-producer Moore, of whom English speaks highly.“

“Charles Moore had a wonderfully astute and gifted musical mind, and he understood what to do and how to make things work,” he says. “It was just a joy to work with him and to put this together with a good friend and musical brother.”

English credits Cox and Moore with being the brain trust behind Strata, and is grateful that Fish Feet, which also features the cover art of Overton Lloyd, is a part of their legacy as well. “This is really good work,” he says. “Looking back, I’m kind of proud of what we did there.”

From garage rock roots as a founding member of the Woolies, to tours backing the Four Tops, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and Mary Wilson, English has enjoyed a storied life in music, effortlessly moving between genres with chameleon-like malleability.

English found his calling with 1970s work on Detroit’s Tribe and Strata labels that blended styles such as funk, be-bop, post be-bop and the freedom sound of the jazz avant-garde. Recorded with a small ensemble of Strata brethren including Kenny Cox, Lyman Woodard, Larry Nozero and co-producer Charles Moore.