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!
