Here it is Christmas, herald angels singing, lords a-leaping, and record geeks dusting off their turntables for another go. The missus has shown she knows me well by thoughtfully presenting me with an iPod, which is as inspiring a yuletide tale as I can think of, and will doubtless result in new, technology-assisted forms of geekery. Don't worry though, no matter how digital I get, I'll never abandon the vinyl. Speaking of which;

Black Heat - s/t

Although I honestly don't hear much evidence of it in the grooves, people say that this early-'70s Washington D.C. funk band was an early influence on the D.C. go-go scene (Trouble Funk, E.U., Chuck Brown, etc.). To me they sound pretty similar to a lot of other contemporaneous post-JB's funksters, but I think a lot of their influential status has to do with place and time. In any case, they were a fine band, loose-limbed horns fronting a tight rhythm section, soulful organ, plenty of funky instrumentals, and a couple of obligatory slow-jam soul tunes with decent vocals. David "Fathead" Newman guests on tenor sax, and is featured plenty, but the other hornmen are no slouches either, and worked as sessionmen for as many jazz artists as R&B acts. This Atlantic album was their first, and I've read that their second was much better. At some point both were released together as a twofer CD, which I think may have been a German import (?), with the same cover art as the debut album. Go-go heads are free to investigate and likely to enjoy, but shouldn't expect the motherlode or anything.

Stanley Cowell - Regeneration

This album is a perfect example of what made the Strata-East label so great. Anybody who collects '70s jazz or rare-groove stuff knows about Strata-East, but for those who don't, it was a New York-based independent label specializing in progressive, post-bop jazz, sometimes including elements of funk and other styles. It was a by-musicians-for-musicians type of collective started by pianist Stanley Cowell and trumpeter Charles Tolliver, whose mission was to give relatively underground players a chance to do their thing. At the time, you couldn't give those records away, but today they're collectors' items (ain't it always the way?). Anyhow, Cowell was (and is) a great, forward-looking pianist and composer, whose group with Tolliver, Music Inc., was the first Strata-East release, around '71 I think. Regeneration shows how far the Strata-East set were willing to stretch themselves in the name of experimentation. Cowell plays alongside some great, well-known jazz musicians (drummers Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins, bassist Bill Lee [yes, he's Spike's father], Marion Brown, etc.) as well as some African players on traditional African instruments. The record is essentially a combination of freeform jazz, African music, and R&B, but the tracks are all over the map; one features female vocals and Cowell wailing on synthesizer, another is an African string-instrument feature, another is a piano-and-harmonica duet, another is three drummers plus Brown on fife, you get the idea. It's a free-wheeling, organic record that's full of the kind of creative, innovative spirit that still reigned in the '70s, full of warmth, surprises, and energy. It's definitely not the kind of thing you've heard before elsewhere.

African Music Machine - Black Water Gold

This early-'70s funk record is by a Louisiana band that was also the house band for the Jewel/Paula R&B label (Fontella Bass, Ted Taylor, etc.) On their own, they turn out an extremely James Brown-indebted sound, the derivation of which they're completely upfront about--there's a song here called "Mr. Brown" that is an unqualified tribute to the Godfather of Soul. Occasionally, this octet throws in a little dash of Latin flavor, via percussion or a brief Santana-esque interlude, and there's a bit of a laid-back, loose-and-swampy undercurrent that's traceable to their Shreveport origins. Nice stuff, recommended to anybody who wants to dig deep into the classic era of Southern funk.

Longbranch Pennywhistle and Shiloh

I've been listening to the first (and only) albums by both of these bands, the members of which would go on to perpetrate great evil as the Eagles. Longbranch Pennwhistle was essentially singer/songwriters Glenn Frey and J.D. Souther backed by L.A.'s finest (Ry Cooder, Joe Osborne, James Burton, Larry Knechtel, etc.), while Shiloh featured Don Henley on drums and vocals, and was more of a self-contained band. Both of them were at the heart of the nascent L.A. country-rock scene around 1970, and played with Linda Ronstadt et al. Both albums are considerably less slick and pop-oriented than anything the Eagles did, closer to Buffalo Springfield than to, I don't know, Pablo Cruise. Longbranch Pennywhistle focused more on acoustic guitar picking, Frey and Souther's vocal harmonies, and a more folkish flavor, while Shiloh rocked a bit harder. Personally, I prefer Frey's band, but both are quite good early West Coast country-rock bands infinitely preferable to (though obviously containing embryonic elements of) the you-know-whos.