Check Out My Mixtape: Steve Arrington on jazz fusion

The funk legend has put together a tape called 'The Reemergence Of Jazz Fusion Music'

Check Out My Mixtape is a brand new feature on Dummy where we ask a musician to put together a mixtape for us on whatever theme they like. Kicking off the series is funk legend Steve Arrington – playing in classic funk groups like Slave, the band he joined in 1978 as a drummer before becoming the lead singer, he enjoyed huge hits in the ’80s and featured on Thundercat’s last ‘It Is What It Is’ album, as well as on the Snoop-and-DâM-Funk project 7 Days of Funk. The funk master recently dropped his own album ‘Down to the Lowest Terms: The Soul Sessions’ via Stones Throw, a lush, groove-ridden LP and his first record in eleven years.

Arrington’s mixtape is titled ‘The Reemergence Of Jazz Fusion Music’, a nod to one of his first loves in music. “I grew up listening to many styles of music – one of them was jazz fusion music – I loved it,” he says. “Miles Davis – ‘Bitches Brew’, Mahavishnu Orchestra – ‘Inner Mounting Flame’, Herbie Hancock – ‘Head Hunters’, Return To Forever – ‘No Mystery’, Weather Report – ‘Heavy Weather’, Billy Cobham – ‘Spectrum’, Tony Williams Lifetime – ‘Believe It’. As a teenager, I was listening to this diverse jazz fusion music, each and every day.”

“This music played such a big role in my development, musically and spiritually… What’s exciting for me is to hear and see young musicians embracing fusion music again! Doing their own thing in their own way. Jazz, soul, funk, rock, experimental – it’s all there in jazz fusion. Here are a few of the younger artists that I’m enjoying listening to.”

Listen to Steve Arrington’s selections below.