Various – DJ Notoya Presents Funk Tide: Tokyo Jazz-Funk From Electric Bird’s Vaults 1978-87 LP WeWantSounds (UK)

LP version. A stylish selection of jazz-funk from Japanese label Electric Bird, selected by DJ Notoya and featuring Yasuaki Shimizu, Shunzo Ohno, Bobby Lyle, Toshiyuki Honda, Mikio Masuda, David Matthews, and Ronnie Foster. Following the success of the Tokyo Glow compilation, Wewantsounds once again teams up with Japanese Tokyo-based DJ Notoya to dig the rich Electric Bird catalogue and come with a versatile selection of sunny jazz-funk gems recorded between 1978 and 1987 for the label. Most tracks make their vinyl debut outside of Japan and the album has been designed by Optigram/Manuel Sepulveda and is annotated by DJ Notoya. Audio newly remastered in Tokyo by King Records. A sub-label from the venerable Japanese label King Records, Electric Bird was set up in 1977 to cater for the booming Nippon jazz funk audience that King — as the Japanese licensee for such US jazz labels at Blue Note or CTI — had grown for years. Taking advantage of their experience and the many contacts King had garnered through their American partners, Electric Bird, headed by in-house producer Shigeyuki Kawashima, decided to apply the same formula to their new label. Kawashima began signing a new wave of jazz musicians from Japan, putting them in state-of-the-art Tokyo or New York studios and backing them with the best American and Japanese players in order to shape the slick, sun-drenched jazz funk sound that would be Electric Bird’s signature sound. With Funk Tide, DJ Notoya aimed at showcasing the diversity of the label’s output, from the funky opener “In The Sky” by Trumpeter Shunzo Ohno to the sunshine mid-tempo groove of sax player Toshiyuki Honda’s “Living in a City” featuring Paulinho Da Costa on perc via Mikio Masuda‘s Fender Rhodes-infected “Let’s Get Together.” One of Funk Tide‘s highlights is certainly Katsutoshi Morizono‘s “Space Traveller” from 1978, a remake of James Vincent‘s eponymous cult classic recorded two years before with some of Earth Wind And Fire‘s musicians and which has since become a favorite on the groove scene. Faithful to Vincent’s beautiful laid-back, breezy original, Morizono’s rendition add its own spice to it, and ending Notoya’s skilled selection of the cutting-edge Electric Bird label on a perfect note.