Just found some Prince instrumentals on a video website called the 'Loring Park Sessions' that I never knew existed. Aparently they are from 1977 before he even released his first album. Hoping some one can shed some more light and give me some backgound also opinions woud be nice too. Personally I enjoyed them very much, laid back funky jazz nothing like most of his later work.

I love the Loring Park sessions.

They were recorded in 1977 at Owen Husney's Loring Park office in Minneapolis.

The line up for these recordings was Prince, Bobby Z and Andre Cymone.

I don't think a lot more information is available, and an exact recording date is (I think) not known.

These are also available on Work It 2.0, I also think they are on a couple of other bootlegs.

I really like the sound of these instrumentals, and I think they show just how good a drummer Bobby Z really was/is too.

Also, the tracks do not have titles as such, they are only known as instrumental 1, instrumental 2 etc etc.

I love these early Prince session leading in2 4 U

thanks! so no drum machine then and it was never an official release. Its such a great sound and really demonstrates Prince's talents as a musician and composer and he was only 19 y/o at the time. I love instrumentals because I can imagine pictures and colours while the music is playing, maybe Prince could make a whole album of them in the future.

tsangpogorge said:

thanks! so no drum machine then and it was never an official release. Its such a great sound and really demonstrates Prince's talents as a musician and composer and he was only 19 y/o at the time. I love instrumentals because I can imagine pictures and colours while the music is playing, maybe Prince could make a whole album of them in the future.

The 8 instrumentals that make up The Loring Park Sessions sound pretty good on Work It 2.0, sound quality is very good indeed, but an official release would be sweet.

I'm sure you are aware that Prince has recorded a few instrumental albums and released them officially.

You should check them out, none of them have the Loring Park sound but the Madhouse albums and N.E.W.S, Xpectation and C-Note are good.

[Edited 4/19/11 5:38am]

By the time Prince said that he wanted to release r&b/funk/rock/pop as Prince and then release jazz-oriented stuff under a different moniker.

It took him 10 years to achieve that but 1987 saw the birth of Madhouse.

vitriol said:

By the time Prince said that he wanted to release r&b/funk/rock/pop as Prince and then release jazz-oriented stuff under a different moniker.

It took him 10 years to achieve that but 1987 saw the birth of Madhouse.

The Madhouse albums are great, I think "8" has possibly aged better than the others, but I find them all a pleasure to listen to, maybe not so much the early 90's version of "24."

TheDigitalGardener said:

Also, the tracks do not have titles as such, they are only known as instrumental 1, instrumental 2 etc etc.

Thanks - I was wondering which ones they were.

If i have The Work, ivault and 30 Years Of Unreleased Funk do i need Work It 2.0?

Of course.

You can dump The Work and iVault.

[snip - Mars23]

[snip - Mars23]

Never heard of these recordings before!

Nice to discover something new (to me) today... thanks to the OP for starting this thread.