Seamless continue their Vintage Grooves Series with this generally excellent two CD funk compilation that scores by combining the obvious and familiar with the rare and esoteric. Of the well-known there’s stuff like AWB’s ‘Pick Up The Pieces’, Labelle’s ‘Lady Marmalade’ and Sly’s ‘Family Affair’. Maybe a bit less obvious are the Watts 103rd. Street Rhythm Band’s ‘Express Yourself’ and Positive Force’s ‘We Got The Funk’ -both great cuts but so often overlooked in collections like this. A lot less obvious are Jackie McLean’s ‘Doctor Jackyll and Mister Funk’, George Duke’s ‘Reach For It’, the Brecker Brothers’ ‘Sneakin’ Up Behind You’ and The Headhunters’ ‘God Made Me Funky’. Critics could point to the omission of real hard funk of the James Brown/Dyke and the Blazers variety and the spaced out funk of the whole Parliament/Funkadelic brigade, but generally over the 28 cuts here, you do get a good definition of what funk is/was all about… and anything that flags up Donny Hathaway’s ‘The Ghetto’ and Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Freddie’s Dead’ deserves some recognition
(BB) 4/5
