Garden of Life | 01

A selection shaped by what we love, Garden of Life | 01 opens a new Boogie Down Reductions mix series produced in collaboration with Kirsten Muenster Jewelry.

"Morning (4Hero Remix)" – Azymuth

"Love Power" – Bob James

“Take a Little Trip”  – Minnie Riperton

“Daylight” – RAMP

"Little Sunflower" – Dorothy Ashby

"Sunshine" – Nancy Wilson

"The Gentle Rain (RJD2 Remix)" – Astrud Gilberto

"Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love" – Odyssey

“Come With Me” – Tania Maria

"Garden of Life" – Special Touch

"Dreaming About You" – The Blackbyrds

"Music Is My Sanctuary" – Gary Bartz

"I Believe In Miracles (Extended Mix)" – Jackson Sisters

"Pontos de Luz" – Gal Costa

"Lovely Day (Studio Rio Remix)" – Bill Withers

"Morning (4hero Remix)" — Azymuth

"Morning (4hero Remix)" is a 5:35 Marc Mac treatment of Azymuth's "Manhã," opening 4hero Present Brazilika: An Eclectic Brazilian DJ-Mix From Marc Mac (Far Out Recordings FARO 109CD, August 2006). Marc Mac is one half of 4hero, the Dollis Hill electronic duo with Dego whose 1989 founding of Reinforced Records helped open the way for UK breakbeat hardcore, jungle, drum and bass, and broken beat. The source recording, Track 9 of Azymuth's 1975 self-titled debut Azimüth (Som Livre 410.6003), was made at Estudios Hawai Phonogram in Rio between October 1974 and February 1975 by the original trio of José Roberto Bertrami (keyboards), Alex Malheiros (bass), and Ivan Conti (drums), with vocals by Márcio Lott. The original "Manhã" was sampled by Roni Size on his Mercury Prize-winning 1997 album New Forms; Marc Mac's 2006 treatment closes the trans-Atlantic loop between Rio's first jazz-funk-fusion trio and London's broken-beat curatorial scene.

"Love Power" — Bob James

"Love Power" closes side B of Bob James's 1981 ninth album Sign of the Times, released on his own Tappan Zee Records imprint. The track is a Bob James composition that reunited the Inner City Blues CTI crew a decade later: Grover Washington Jr. on tenor saxophone, Eric Gale on guitar, and a percussion pairing of Airto Moreira and Leonard "Doc" Gibbs Jr., with Gary King on bass and Buddy Williams on drums. The vocal section placed Luther Vandross on the chorus alongside Patti Austin and James's wife Hilary; Vandross's debut Never Too Much had appeared on Epic two months earlier. By 1981 James had brought in British writer Rod Temperton (Off the Wall, Give Me the Night) to chase a crossover hit, and Temperton's title track later supplied the loop for Warren G's "Regulate". "Love Power" itself stayed inside the James orbit, sampled at the end of the decade for Jeru the Damaja's "Seinfeld".

“Take a Little Trip”  – Minnie Riperton

"Take a Little Trip" is the third track on Side A of Perfect Angel, Minnie Riperton's second studio album, released May 24, 1974 by Epic Records and recorded at The Record Plant in Los Angeles. The song was written by Stevie Wonder, who also produced the album under the pseudonym "El Toro Negro" with Riperton's husband Richard Rudolph (Wonder's Motown contract prevented him from openly producing for Epic). Michael Sembello played guitar, Reggie McBride bass, Rocki Dzidzornu congas, and Wonder himself contributed the harmonica solo. The TONTO synthesizer team of Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff engineered. Riperton, born in Chicago in 1947, had spent her teens as a Chess Records session singer and the lead voice of Charles Stepney's Rotary Connection. Perfect Angel was certified Gold and made Riperton a household name through its No. 1 single "Lovin' You." 

"Daylight" — RAMP

"Daylight" is track B2 on RAMP's only album, Come Into Knowledge (ABC Blue Thumb BT-6028, June 1977), recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York and Record Plant in Hollywood. RAMP stood for Roy Ayers Music Productions: the Cincinnati-grown soul-funk band that Ayers caught at a Saturday night gig under the name Saturday Night Special, then signed to his production company. The song was co-written by Edwin Birdsong, Roy Ayers, and William Allen, who also co-produced. Vocalists Sharon Matthews and Sibel Thrasher fronted the band; guitarist Landy Shores and drummer John Manuel were former Spinners utility players, with Nate White on bass. ABC Blue Thumb folded in 1978 and the album fell into rare-groove holy-grail status until A Tribe Called Quest sampled "Daylight" on "Bonita Applebum," the second single from their 1990 Jive debut.

"Little Sunflower" — Dorothy Ashby

"Little Sunflower" sits on Dorothy Ashby's Afro-Harping, recorded February 1968 at Chess Records' Ter Mar Studios in Chicago and released that July on the Cadet imprint, produced and arranged by Richard Evans. The composition is by Freddie Hubbard, who debuted it on his 1967 Atlantic LP Backlash under producer Arif Mardin. Ashby's version pairs her harp with Phil Upchurch's guitar, Charles Stepney on keys, vibes, and theremin, and a rotating cast of Chicago drummers including Maurice White. The album was a commercial flop on release, dismissed by Ashby's existing jazz audience, and later sampled by Pete Rock, J Dilla, Madlib, and Flying Lotus. The Chess axis of Stepney, Upchurch, and White that cut Afro-Harping became the production core of Earth, Wind & Fire within a decade; Ashby returned the favor by playing harp on EWF's All 'n All (1977) and I Am (1979).

"Sunshine" — Nancy Wilson

"Sunshine" sits on Nancy Wilson's Life, Love and Harmony, released June 1979 on Capitol as her 35th studio album. The record was produced, arranged, and conducted by Larry Farrow, Wilson's then-musical director, who co-wrote eight of nine originals with his life and songwriting partner Carolyn Johns. The session brought in James Gadson on drums, David T. Walker and Lee Ritenour on guitars, Paulinho DaCosta on percussion, and John Klemmer's tenor saxophone solo on the track; Wilson tosses in a quickfire Louis Armstrong impression mid-vocal. The single didn't chart in the US, and Wilson left Capitol the following year after a twenty-year run. But "Sunshine" found a second life on the UK rare groove circuit that Norman Jay was pioneering through pirate Kiss FM, and was canonized in 1994 on EMI's compilation Capitol Rare: Funky Notes From The West Coast, which also collected Gary Bartz's "Music Is My Sanctuary" from the same Capitol vault.

"The Gentle Rain (RJD2 Remix)" — Astrud Gilberto

The original The Gentle Rain ("Chuva Delicada") is a 1965 Luiz Bonfá bossa nova with English lyrics by Matt Dubey, written for the Burt Balaban film of the same name and cut for the original Mercury soundtrack with orchestral arrangements by a young Eumir Deodato. Astrud Gilberto recorded her vocal version the same year on her Verve album The Shadow of Your Smile, produced by Creed Taylor (who later founded CTI Records) with Claus Ogerman arranging the track. Forty years on, Verve put thirteen contemporary electronic and hip-hop producers to work on its vault for Verve Remixed 3 (April 5, 2005), where Philadelphia producer RJD2 (Ramble John Krohn, two albums into his career on Definitive Jux) reworked Gilberto's vocal into a 5:59 cut alongside contributions from Danger Mouse, Carl Craig, Junior Boys, The Postal Service, and Lyrics Born.

"Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love" — Odyssey

"Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love" is the title track of the only album by Odyssey, a seven-piece L.A. band fronted by Royce Jones (lead vocals) and Kathleen Warren (piano, vibes, vocals), distinct from the New York disco trio of the same name. The 1972 LP was produced by Gene Page, the L.A. arranger known for his Phil Spector and Barry White work, and released on MoWest, Motown's Hollywood-based subsidiary at 6255 W. Sunset that lasted from 1971 to 1973 and folded after roughly ten albums and fifty singles. Royce Jones later joined Steely Dan as a touring vocalist on Countdown to Ecstasy (1973-74), then sang on Ambrosia's Grammy-nominated "Biggest Part of Me" (1980); guitarist Donnie Dacus joined Chicago in 1978. The single sank on release and clean copies became a UK and Japanese collector grail. In 2011, Light in the Attic Records compiled the first MoWest retrospective and named it after this track.

"Come With Me" — Tania Maria

"Come With Me" is the title track and opening cut of Tania Maria's 1983 album Come With Me (Concord Jazz Picante CJP-200), recorded August 1982 at Coast Recorders in San Francisco. Concord founder Carl E. Jefferson produced; Phil Edwards engineered; George Horn mastered. Tania Maria (piano, keyboards, vocals, arrangements) led her sextet of Eddie Duran and Jose Neto on guitars, John Peña and Lincoln Goines on bass, and the drum-and-percussion pair of Portinho and Steve Thornton. The track became her international breakthrough, a UK soulboy Brazilian rare-groove anthem championed by DJ Robbie Vincent on his Saturday-afternoon BBC Radio London soul shows during the Brit-Funk era. Born in São Luís, Maranhão, in 1948, Tania Maria had been recommended to Jefferson by American guitarist Charlie Byrd after Byrd caught her Australian festival performances.

"Garden of Life" — Special Touch

"Garden of Life" is the title track of Special Touch's only album, a 1991 release on the small UK Street Soul imprint Top Secret Recordings. The project was a family affair built around producer and TSR label-owner Robert Charles Roper and his brother Duval on lead vocals, threading synth melodies over a drum-machine programmed beat with Duval's soaring vocal. UK Street Soul ran in parallel to the acid house boom of the late 1980s, working out of Black British inner-city communities in Manchester, London, Birmingham, Leeds, and Bradford, with pirate radio and sound systems doing the distribution majors skipped. The album sat largely unheard outside the scene for nearly three decades before Heels & Souls Recordings licensed it from Roper, remastered from the original DAT tape, and released it as their debut catalog entry (HSREC001) on October 16, 2020. Original 1991 LPs command upwards of £100 in clean condition.

"Dreaming About You" — The Blackbyrds

"Dreaming About You" is the closing track of Action, The Blackbyrds' fifth Fantasy Records album, released September 1, 1977 (catalog F-9535) and recorded at The Sound Factory in Hollywood. Donald Byrd produced for Blackbyrd Productions, Inc.; Wade Marcus arranged and conducted; David Shields played bass, Eddie "Bongo" Brown of Motown's Funk Brothers contributed congas, and the band's regular rhythm section of Keith Killgo (drums) and Kevin Toney (keyboards) anchored the date. The Blackbyrds were formed in Washington, D.C., in 1973 from among Donald Byrd's Howard University Music Department students, and named themselves after Byrd's 1973 Mizell-produced Black Byrd, the biggest-selling album in Blue Note Records' history at the time of release. Action peaked at No. 8 on the Top Soul LPs chart and was certified Gold by the RIAA. "Dreaming About You" has since been sampled in more than sixty hip-hop and dance tracks.

"Music Is My Sanctuary" — Gary Bartz

"Music Is My Sanctuary" is the title track of Gary Bartz's 1977 Capitol Records album (ST-11647), recorded that March at Sound Factory West in Hollywood and engineered by Jim Nipar. Bartz co-wrote the song with Sigidi, sang lead, and played alto and soprano sax, piano, electric piano, and synthesizer. The track was produced by Larry and Fonce Mizell for Sky High Productions. The Howard University-trained brothers' Capitol and Blue Note catalog, running from Donald Byrd's Black Byrd (1973) through Bobbi Humphrey's Blacks and Blues and Johnny Hammond's Gears, defined the cosmic, synth-led side of mid-70s jazz-funk. Wah-Wah Watson, David T. Walker, and George Cables joined the band, with Syreeta on loan from Motown in the chorus. EMI's 1994 Capitol Rare compilation opened Disc 1 with this track, alongside Nancy Wilson's "Sunshine" from the same Capitol vault.

"I Believe In Miracles (Extended Mix)" — Jackson Sisters

"I Believe In Miracles (Extended Mix)" is the A-side of the 1987 Urban Records 12-inch (URBX 4, ℗ PolyGram Records, Inc.), a 4:45 Simon Harris remix of the Jackson Sisters' 1973 Prophesy Records original. The reissue peaked at No. 72 on the UK Singles Chart but became one of the defining records of the UK rare-groove movement on Norman Jay's Kiss FM Original Rare Groove Show. The Compton-born sisters (Jacqueline, Lyn, Pat, Rae, and Gennie Jackson) had cut the song in Detroit in 1973, produced by Bobby Taylor (the Vancouver bandleader who had brought the Jackson 5 to Motown) and Pete Moore of Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, with Don Altfeld and Robert Walker co-producing and Gene Page (Barry White's longtime string arranger) on arrangement. The song was written by Mark Capanni and Bobby Taylor, and has since been sampled in more than thirty hip-hop and dance tracks. Original Prophesy 45s fetch upwards of $200.

"Pontos de Luz" — Gal Costa

"Pontos de Luz" is the eighth track on Gal Costa's Índia, her fourth solo studio album, released on Philips in 1973 and recorded at Phonogram (Rio) and Eldorado (São Paulo). The song was written by Jards Macalé and Waly Salomão, and arranged by Arthur Verocai under the album's musical direction of Gilberto Gil and the production of Guilherme Araújo. The band threaded Toninho Horta on guitar, Wagner Tiso on keyboards, Luiz Alves on bass, Robertinho Silva on drums, and the late Tenório Jr. on piano. The original 1973 LP cover, an Antônio Guerreiro photograph of Costa in a red bikini, was banned by Brazil's military dictatorship; the record was sold inside a sealed black sleeve until Mr Bongo restored the uncensored artwork for its 2017 reissue. The song was later sampled by Kaytranada on "Lite Spots", a single from his Polaris-winning 2016 debut 99.9%.

"Lovely Day (Studio Rio Remix)" — Bill Withers

"Lovely Day (Studio Rio Version)" is the lead single and opening track from Studio Rio Presents: The Brazil Connection, Sony Legacy's 2014 collaboration between German Grammy-winning producer-brothers Frank and Christian Berman and a roster of veteran Brazilian musicians including Marcos Valle, Roberto Menescal, and Paulo Braga from Antônio Carlos Jobim's rhythm section. With Sony's permission, the Bermans extracted Bill Withers' lead vocal from the 1977 Menagerie multitracks (the song was co-written by Withers and Skip Scarborough) and rebuilt the backing in Rio de Janeiro under arranger Torcuato Mariano. Pretinho da Serrinha contributes cavaquinho; Jerry Boys, of Buena Vista Social Club fame, handled the mix. Mr Bongo reissued the song as a 7-inch in 2024, the previously unreleased instrumental on the B-side.