Showing posts with label Soul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soul. Show all posts

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Pulp Fusion: Cheeba Cheeba Mix by Funky Bompa

For the past several years all I've really listened to has been '70s jazz, funk, and soul. Harmless Records's Pulp Fusion series is the best source for this always-fresh music. Starting in the mid-'90s and spanning ten volumes (with volume #11, the "15th Anniversary" set, coming out this September), the Pulp Fusion series features some of the best funky jazz ever put on wax. (I still have fond memories of taking Volume #1 on my honeymoon back in the summer of 2002; I played that CD in our rental car as we drove from Virginia Beach to DC and from there on up to Maryland, my wife constantly shaking her head and asking me to put on the radio.)

Anyway, I just stumbled on this -- an hour-long mix of tracks taken from the Pulp Fusion series, put together by a Brussels-based DJ named Funky Bompa. It's available as a free MP3 download HERE.

Comprised of "bits and breaks from the vaults of the Pulp Fusion series," this "Cheeba Cheeba" mix cherry-picks some of the standout tracks into a consistently-grooving set. It's got some great cuts, from Johnny Hammond's "Shifting Gears" to The Lafayette Afro-Rock Band's "Darkest Light." I just wish Bompa had included Dennis Coffey's "Theme from Black Belt Jones" off of Pulp Fusion Volume #3.

Jazz-funk songs average around 4 minutes as a minimum, so to slice them down to around a minute (or less) each doesn't really give a good representation of the genre. But that's not what DJ mixes are about -- they're about getting to the good stuff, focusing on the breaks and the beats, and Bompa does a phenomenal job.

The perfect soundtrack for the next time you're reading say Iceman or Black Samurai...