PRINCE JAZZED UP

When Prince started entering the Dutch hit parade (and appeared on TV of course) I have to admit that I couldn’t care less as his type of music didn’t appeal to me at all at the time…

Although I do recall when the whole family saw him performing ‘Kiss’ on television, we were all flabbergasted, that sounded completely different from anyone else at the time!

Years later in Thailand I heard his ’Sign O’ The Times’ which hit all the right spots, amazing song, both musically and lyrically.

Even so, I never really got into Prince despite some admittedly fantastic songs…

Time for a jazzy detour!

Bob Belden had quite a track record at Blue Note Records, as saxophonist, bandleader, composer, producer and arranger and I started paying more attention to him when he came up with a remarkable interpretation of Sting/The Police’s songs entitled: Straight To My Heart: The Bob Belden Ensemble Performs The Music Of Sting (1991).

According to Belden: “With Sting’s music I wanted to learn about lyrical form.”

This was followed by When Doves Cry: The Music Of Prince in 1994 of which Belden said the following: “With Prince I could explore the complete vocabulary of pop music.”

Much later I found out that actually he had released another Prince album that same year, but only in Japan as Bob Belden's Manhattan Rhythm Club - Princejazz (a collector’s item!)…

That last album has only instrumental interpretations and is more jazzy compared to When Doves Cry which features several vocal tracks.

Prince himself was at times also interested in doing Jazz style work, he even created a new band for that specific purpose: Madhouse.

Madhouse at its heart was just two people: Prince and Eric Leeds, with Eric playing saxophone/flute and Prince virtually everything else.

Miles Davis was intrigued, he even covered a Madhouse track (Penetration) in concert.

A collaboration with Prince didn’t really work out that well but the resulting Can I Play With U finally got released many years later on the expanded edition of Sign O' The Times.

Eric Leeds released a solo album in 1991, Times Squared, on which Prince played along as well…

Once the Madhouse project was finished Prince did release an all instrumental album called Xpectation in 2001.

Over the years Prince’s songs have been covered by loads of artists in various styles, from funk to jazz to reggae and beyond.

For your listening pleasure here are 2 CD length albums of Prince’s songs showcasing a more Jazz side of his work, artists include a.m.o. Bob Belden's Manhattan Rhythm Club, Nina Simone, Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and of course The Artist Formerly Known As himself!