Description
The Record That Preceded the Soul-Jazz Movement: Kool and the Gang’s Funky Live at P.J.’s Thrills with Boundless Diversity, Virtuosic Interplay, and Contagious Grooves
Experience the Exhilarating 1971 Album in Audiophile Sound for the First Time: Strictly Limited to 2,000 Numbered Copies, Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 33RPM LP Plays with Exceptional Definition and Clarity
1/4” / 15 IPS analog master to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe
Make it funky. Kool and the Gang do that and much more on Live at P.J.’s, a freewheeling concert album that both preceded the resurgent soul-jazz movement by decades and demonstrated the boundless diversity, virtuosic skill, arrangement chops, and contagious energy of a band that over the course of its career refused to be hemmed in to any particular style or characteristic. Filled with then-new compositions, this wordless 1971 set comes on like one long, magnetic, ever-shifting groove. And it’s never been better.
Sourced from the original analog master tapes, strictly limited to 2,000 numbered copies, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, and housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 33RPM LP presents the incalculably influential record in audiophile sound for the very first time. Compared to prior editions, Live at P.J.’s plays with deeper, tauter bass, enhanced definition, and more realistic presence. Everything from the brassiness of the horns to the snap of the snare to the rattle of the congas comes across in full-range perspective.
This collectible version of the monster LP also exhibits a combination of clarity, solidity, and imaging that helps bring to light every note Kool and the Gang committed to tape that late May 1971 Saturday night at a show that kicked off at 10:45 local time and came amidst another of the group’s busy tour schedules. Though augmented with strings later in the studio, the core of Live at P.J.’s remains what the septet of Robert “Kool” Bell, saxophonist Ronald Bell, drummer George Brown, guitarist Claydes Smith, trumpeter Robert Mickens, and multi-instrumentalists Dennis Thomas and Ricky West delivered onstage.
The final LP of Kool and the Gang’s jazz-centric era, and the last set it released before the group gained a foothold on commercial radio, Live at P.J.’s cooks with excursions into tropical-flavored material (“Ricksonata”), romantic fare (an inspired take of the pop evergreen’( “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”), Latin-leaning work (a cover of saxophone legend Charles Lloyd’s “Sombrero Sam”), and even pieces that could serve as film-score backdrops (“Lucky for Me”).
Kool Jazz, all ‘around.
Tracklisting:
