This final batch “Records at Random” leading up to the New Year has been pretty wacky. There was an “Electric Indian,” a real group of funky Native Americans, a zoot-suited big-band, and now a freakin’ conquistador! Okay, okay, so today’s record is really by Jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, not an actual Spanish colonizer. But the record, a 1977 outing for the Columbia Records label, is called Conquistador, and that’s good enough for me.
I remember the first time some of the kids I used to work on beats with found this LP in their collection. They went crazy because it had a cover of “Gonna Fly Now,” the theme song from Sylvester Stallone’s 1976 opus Rocky, on it. I have no idea why that was a selling point of the LP for them, but it was. I wound up with a copy of the album in my collection eventually as well, but I can honestly say the “Rocky Theme” was not influential in my decision to make the purchase at all. Even if the cinema-inspired melodramatic quality and cheesy lite-Funk and Disco influences represented by “Gonna Fly Now” are very-much-so representative of what the album is all about. Most of the songs on the album are big, and pompously brassy, but also totally homogenized and ready for the muzak channel at the local shopping mall or dentist’s office. There’s even a cover of the “Theme From Star Trek” for chrissake!
That slick, though dated, accessibility is totally a double edged sword too, as the way Maynard and his band-mates, including guests George Benson, Harvey Mason, Bob James, Patti Austin, and Gwen Guthrie, make easy-listening toe-tappers out of completely over-the-top orchestrations has actually kept me away from the album to a large degree. But the truth is, in between the overwrought brass and string swells, and late-’70s generic Funk and Disco-isms, there are actually some really intense passages where the rhythm section really locks into a dope groove, a soloist really gets down, or a genuinely catchy melody comes into play. Even the “Rocky” and “Star Treck” covers have ill some surprisingly ill horn/percussion breaks and funky synth/flute work, respectively.
The real reason for anybody, whether beat-fiend, sample-squirrel, or just appreciator of funky music in general, to own the Conquistador album is “Mr. Mellow.” It’s a largely instrumental downtempo groover, suitable for the “quiet storm” set, with a sexily undulating bassline and velutinous guitar accompaniment from the ever fleet-fingered George Benson, that’s been notably sampled a number of times since the 1990’s. It’s been a key track in many of my DJ sets, from those centered on breaks and samples, to those focused on helping you get busy with your lady, to simple showcases of the smoother side of the “Funky Jazz” era.
So just consider it a bonus that the remainder of the original compositions on the LP, including the title track, “The Fly,” and the Bob James penned “Soar Like an Eagle,” are littered with more than enough metaphorical “gold” in the form of classy musicianship and intrinsic funkiness to break up the pomp and cheese and make it a rewarding mission of musical conquest.
-El Keter
