Live at Museum of Modern Art

• Artist: Pazant Brothers
• Rating:
• Release Date: November 25, 2003
• Type: Live
• Genre: Rhythm & Blues

Review

Even by the standards of strange collector archive finds, this is unusual: a previously unreleased, indeed likely previously unknown, live concert from the early 1970s at New York's Museum of Modern Art by an obscure funk band themselves known only to collectors. It's fairly hot, too, and pretty well recorded, the sound falling only the smallest of tads short of ideal. The Pazant Brothers played mostly instrumental soul-funk on this date, with a heavier touch of jazz than most such early-'70s outfits; a couple of them, after all, had done time with Lionel Hampton. There's almost a New Orleans marching band-meets-James Brown tinge to some of the horns, the sassy staccato breaks doing much to set them apart from other groups of the period. The tracks do get a little similar-sounding over the course of this hour-long groovefest, but it's a good blend of original material and eclectic, funkified covers, including the Rascals' "Groovin'," Martha & the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Streets," Nat Adderley's "Work Song," and, in far more of a left-field shot, Melanie's "Momma Momma." Betty Barney takes vocals on the three non-instrumental numbers (one of them being "Momma, Momma"), but she's only an average soul singer, and those tracks are actually less interesting than the instrumental workouts. Strangest of all is hearing the dignified pre-song announcements -- "now we'd like to do another original number of ours, it's a very, as you say, funky thing...it's entitled "'Skunk Juice'" intones one band member with the dignity of an awards presentation, to zero audible audience response. It might have been an odd combination of artist and venue, but it's a good thing the tapes were running. It makes you wonder, too, just how many other unsuspected off-the-wall live tapes of this sort are going to somehow eventually emerge into daylight. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

Tracks

Track Title	Composers	Performers	Time
P Soul	Mike Terry, Alvin Pazant	Pazant Brothers	(4:10)
Dancing in the Streets		Pazant Brothers
Fly Vines		Pazant Brothers
Skunk Juice	Ed Bland	Pazant Brothers
Groovin'		Pazant Brothers
Beaufort Blues		Pazant Brothers
Work Song	Nat Adderley, Oscar Brown, Jr.	Pazant Brothers
Why I Sing the Blues		Pazant Brothers
Momma Momma		Pazant Brothers
We Got More Soul		Pazant Brothers
Clabber Biscuits		Pazant Brothers
Greasy Greens		Pazant Brothers
Dixie Chaser		Pazant Brothers

Credits

Dean Rudland (Liner Notes), Dean Rudland (Compilation), Nick Robbins (Mastering)