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When you think of the Essence Music Festival, you think of Frankie Beverly and Maze. Stevie, Aretha, Beyoncé, Chaka Khan and Prince have played it, but Maze embodies its values down to the electric slide. Like Earth, Wind and Fire, which played the festival in 2006, Maze embraces traditional notions of musical accomplishment—they’ve got chops—and traditional notions of songwriting—they’ve got melodies—and a traditional sense of jazz and soul history—they’ve got roots. They have a socially and musically progressive spirit, but like Marvin Gaye and urbane singers before him, Beverly’s a lover not a fighter.
Maze debuted in 1977, and their sound is a 1970s sound, the product of R&B maturing and finding new expressions—everything from funk to disco to fusion—in the big cities, and those years’ influence is all over the Essence festival. Kanye West has made his living as a producer mining the decade, and closer to home, Melissa Weber—DJ Soul Sister—is best known for spinning rare groove funk and soul, and in a city where the Meters define funk (starting in 1969), Big Sam’s Funky Nation draws more on James Brown and George Clinton’s P-Funk ecstatic rave-ups. Sammie Williams will pay tribute to the decade with his Essence festival revue, the New Orleans Funk and Soul Explosion, while Weber will be at the main stage spinning tracks to keep the party going. Both have a slightly distant relationship to the decade that shaped the festival. Weber was a youngster as the ’70s came to a close, while Williams missed them entirely.
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DJ Soul Sister points out that she’s not simply a 1970s rare groove DJ, and she recently did her version of an ’80s night at One Eyed Jacks. Still, her name, her regular parties around town and her WWOZ radio show have made rare groove her calling card, and her love of soul started with Kool and the Gang. “I’ve been on this trail since I was little,” she says. “Music Was the Message by Kool and the Gang from 1972—my dad took me to Sound Warehouse in 1980 and “Celebration” was out. The album had a blue cover—I remember covers—and today it is my favorite record of all time. It’s classic rare groove/deep funk, and I was listening to it at 6 years old. I never gave that sound up. Another one is “There it Is” by James Brown. My dad had James Brown’s Soul Classics. That sound—you hear a sound and you just want more and more of it.”
Recently, she discovered an unexpected source that might have opened her up to that sound: The Electric Company. The Children’s Television Network show aired from 1971 to 1977, and when Weber bought a DVD of the show, she couldn’t believe the soundtrack. “The music was superfunk crazy. No wonder I listened to what I did. I was jamming with the Electric Company.”
Her introduction to George Clinton came through WTUL when she taped “If You’ve Got Funk, You’ve Got Style” on cassette off the radio. “It sounded crazy like from outer space,” she says. “I would listen to it over and over again. I wanted more of that sound. People wonder why I like D.C. go-go so much and think I’m from D.C. I like it because DJ Slick Leo used to play ‘Meet Me at the Go-Go’ on WAIL-FM in the early ’80s. I’m constantly chasing sounds, not so much records because when I go to the record store and dig, I have no idea what I’m looking for. I just pick stuff up, look at it, listen to it, and if it has the sound I’m looking for, that’s what I go for. I’m told I tend to like songs in happy keys or sexy keys. Things in evil-sounding keys—I don’t like them. I think that’s why people dig what I do because things that I play have an uplifting sound or mischievous sound.”
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Big Sam’s sound is similarly uplifting, but not because any fond memories of formative music. Not only did he miss the ’70s, but he was AWOL for the ’80s and most of the ’90s. “In the ’90s, I wasn’t into music yet,” Williams says. “I didn’t start trying to play jazz until 1996 when my mom bought me a Dirty Dozen CD. That was the first thing I heard that really got my attention. The Dirty Dozen album I had was the Ears to the Wall album, which was their funk album with drums, keyboards and guitars. Then I went and checked out all their brass band stuff, and from there I checked out Louis Armstrong. From the ’70s, I knew James Brown. For a long time, all I knew was James Brown. Then I finally got into P-Funk.”
As time has passed, though, Williams has come to recognize the influence of the decade on his music. He doesn’t think about other music when writing his own, but sometimes it becomes apparent once the recording is done. “It’s not until afterwards, after it’s done, I might say, ‘Oh yeah, it sounds like this,’ he says. “‘Peace, Love and Understanding,’ the horn part sounds like Herbie Hancock’s ‘Hang Up Your Hangups’ (from 1979). They share a phrase. Some songs I’ve written, I don’t realize that I got the idea from somewhere else until a couple of years later, I’d listen to some recording on my iPod and realize, ‘Oh yeah, that’s what I was thinking about.’ But I love that.”
He’s not averse to letting his roots show. “On the album, we play it live. I wouldn’t mind someone coming in and tweaking a few things to make it sound like something from the ’70s if it had a ’70s concept, or sound more hip-hop if it had that kind of vibe to it.”
As tempting as it is to think of people as having fairly uniform tastes, whether it’s a preference for jazz, metal, reggae or pop, nothing gives lie to that notion like checking out someone’s iPod. In Big Sam’s case, he says that means finding “everything.” He has some stuff you’d expect, such as the Dirty Dozen, James Brown, Maceo Parker and Prince, but others you might not, including Hank Williams and Tim McGraw. “I’ve got some country,” he says, “but not much bluegrass.” Many of the over 3,000 songs on his iPod are hip-hop including tracks by Kanye, Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliot, and Common. “Everybody’s listening to hip-hop. Hip-hop is the new pop.” When he wants to challenge himself, he plays “Name That Tune” on his iPod, periodically making new connections. “Some songs sound like other stuff; some sound more up-to-date than you expect.”
Weber’s associated with WWOZ, and she’ll celebrate 14 or 15 years on the air—she’s not sure which—in July. But her musical tastes also lead her to WTUL, Q-93, B97 and 102.9. “I listen to Q-93 more than people would expect me to,” she says. And as much as she liked the New Orleans soul, part of her attraction to WWOZ came from its non-New Orleans programming, including reggae and Afrobeat.
“I used to listen to punk, too,” she says. In the early 1980s, she religiously watched MTV and I.R.S. Records’ The Cutting Edge, a precursor to 120 Minutes hosted by the Fleshtones’ Peter Zaremba. “I’m 10 years old with Jheri curls, and Peter Zaremba is standing right in front of me at the Mardi Gras parade,” she says. “I wanted to talk to him, but I figured I was a little black kid and he’d think I was a nut.”
Not surprisingly, festival bookings reflect the diversity of listeners’ tastes these days. Williams points to Bonnaroo, where he played in the New Orleans-themed “Somethin’ Else” Tent while Pearl Jam, Metallica, Widespread Panic and Kanye West all played on main stages. This year’s Jazz Fest added Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, the Raconteurs and Alejandro Escovedo to the soul/rock mix, and Essence has more jazz than ever. Its offering also spans the ages with soul poet Gil Scott-Heron, Grandmaster Flash, Morris Day and the Time, and post-hip-hop iterations of classic styles: Chris Brown, Rihanna, and Mary J. Blige. Not surprisingly, Big Sam and DJ Soul Sister are looking forward to finding their place in the mix.
“Mary J. Blige—I’m a latecomer on her, but she’s the real deal,” Weber says. It’s a little daunting thinking about rocking a crowd that numbers in the tens of thousands, particularly when she prefers to keep it old school. “I’m tailoring some fun stuff in the way I do it,” she says slyly.
Big Sam is fleshing out his band for the occasion, bringing 12 pieces—five horns, female vocalists, percussion, a DJ and some guest vocalists. “Who knows? This might be something I want to do on a regular basis.” When talking about his set, he flashes on Missy Elliot. “She’s a show,” he says. “People want to see a show. I can’t wait until I have the money to plan a big show like that.”
