Roy Ayers

小簡(jiǎn)介
作為60年代最出色和有名的顫音琴手，70年代和80年代著名的樂(lè)隊(duì)的領(lǐng)班,Roy Ayers的最杰出之處在于他是酸爵士的領(lǐng)軍人物,一個(gè)走在時(shí)間前面的人。他的樂(lè)隊(duì)The Roy Ayers Ubiquity 1972年發(fā)行的《Move To Groove》和1976年的《Everybody Loves The Sunshine》把酸爵士領(lǐng)上了音樂(lè)殿堂。但Roy Ayers本人的顫音琴卻仍深植于硬Bop：熱情，剛硬，節(jié)奏反復(fù)有張力。
出生于一個(gè)音樂(lè)之家，Roy Ayers五歲時(shí)就從萊昂內(nèi)爾.漢普敦那里得到了一副槌棒，17歲成為一個(gè)專業(yè)的顫音琴手?？梢哉f(shuō)60年代前期Roy Ayers是美國(guó)西海岸的一道風(fēng)景，與Teddy Edwards，Chico Hamilton，Hampton Hawes等等優(yōu)秀樂(lè)手的合作開(kāi)闊了他的音樂(lè)視野，他開(kāi)始把目光投向更廣闊的音樂(lè)世界。在和Mann合作灌錄了《Memphis Underground》之后，Roy Ayers于1970年組織了自己的樂(lè)隊(duì)The Roy Ayers Ubiquity，受Miles Davis的電子樂(lè)隊(duì)和赫比.漢考克的六重奏影響，The Roy Ayers Ubiquity最初演奏的是混合R&B，搖滾，爵士的音樂(lè)，但不久他就找到了方向，在R&B，F(xiàn)unk和Disco快感的節(jié)奏中散發(fā)出迷人的爵士香韻。這也正是酸爵士的魅力所在。
雖然后期他的Pop錄音過(guò)于商業(yè)化，但是他在樂(lè)壇一直保持著旺盛的生命力。80年代初他領(lǐng)導(dǎo)自己的樂(lè)隊(duì)和尼日利亞音樂(lè)家Fela Anikulapo-Kuti合作錄制了專輯《Uno Melodic》。并頻頻出現(xiàn)在各個(gè)藝術(shù)家的作品中。1993年，Roy Ayers作為客串出現(xiàn)在Guru的爵士名盤(pán)《Jazzmatazz》的伴奏名單中。
by Richard S. Ginell
Once one of the most visible and winning jazz vibraphonists of the 1960s, then an R&B bandleader in the 1970s and 80s, Roy Ayers reputation s now that of one of the prophets of acid jazz, a man decades ahead of his time. A tune like 1972s Move to Groove by the Roy Ayers Ubiquity has a crackling backbeat that serves as the prototype for the shuffling hip-hop groove that became, shall we say, ubiquitous on acid jazz records; and his relaxed 1976 song Everybody Loves the Sunshine has been frequently sampled. Yet Ayers own playing has always been rooted in hard bop: crisp, lyrical, rhythmically resilient. His own reaction to being canonized by the hip-hop crowd as the Icon Man is tempered with the detachment of a survivor in a rough business. Im having fun laughing with it, he has said. I dont mind what they call me, thats what people do in this industry.
Growing up in a musical family — his father played trombone, his mother taught him the piano — the five-year-old Ayers was given a set of vibe mallets by Lionel Hampton, but didnt start on the instrument until he was 17. He got involved in the West Coast jazz scene in his early 20s, recording with Curtis Amy (1962), Jack Wilson (1963-1967), and the Gerald Wilson Orchestra (1965-1966); and playing with Teddy Edwards, Chico Hamilton, Hampton Hawes and Phineas Newborn. A session with Herbie Mann at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach led to a four-year gig with the versatile flutist (1966-1970), an experience that gave Ayers tremendous exposure and opened his ears to styles of music other than the bebop that he had grown up with.
After being featured prominently on Manns hit Memphis Underground album and recording three solo albums for Atlantic under Manns supervision, Ayers left the group in 1970 to form the Roy Ayers Ubiquity, which recorded several albums for Polydor and featured such players as Sonny Fortune, Billy Cobham, Omar Hakim, and Alphonse Mouzon. An R&B-jazz-rock band influenced by electric Miles Davis and the Herbie Hancock Sextet at first, the Ubiquity gradually shed its jazz component in favor of R&B/funk and disco. Though Ayers pop records were commercially successful, with several charted singles on the R&B charts for Polydor and Columbia, they became increasingly, perhaps correspondingly, devoid of musical interest.
In the 1980s, besides leading his bands and recording, Ayers collaborated with Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, formed Uno Melodic Records, and produced and/or co-wrote several recordings for various artists. As the merger of hip-hop and jazz took hold in the early 90s, Ayers made a guest appearance on Gurus seminal Jazzmatazz album in 1993 and played at New York clubs with Guru and Donald Byrd. Though most of his solo records had been out of print for years, Verve issued a two-CD anthology of his work with Ubiquity and the first U.S. release of a live gig at the 1972 Montreux Jazz Festival; the latter finds the group playing excellent straight-ahead jazz, as well as jazz-rock and R&B.