Great find! I've seen Curtis and his band play "Freddie's Dead" from this same session. Joseph "Lucky" Scott to me is up there with Chuck Rainy, Rodney "Skeet" Curtis as far as finger-style bass playing. I love slapping and poppin, but those brothas' playing made greater use of melody and harmonics and especially Lucky Scott knew how to vary tempos, and include modes in his parts that still blow me away. Again, Great find!

Wonder why he never had a horn section included in his band?

bashraka said:

Great find! I've seen Curtis and his band play "Freddie's Dead" from this same session. Joseph "Lucky" Scott to me is up there with Chuck Rainy, Rodney "Skeet" Curtis as far as finger-style bass playing. I love slapping and poppin, but those brothas' playing made greater use of melody and harmonics and especially Lucky Scott knew how to vary tempos, and include modes in his parts that still blow me away. Again, Great find!

thxs

Curtis Mayfield toured behind Joseph Scott-bass, Tyrone McCullen-drums, Craig McMullen-guitar and Henry Gibson-percussion from '70-'73 and even made a live album in 1971 called "Live at The Bitter End". A horn section with full brass is very costly to tour with, so I think for him using a rhythm section would be more cost effective and musically, it allowed for more space for every member of the ensemble. Curtis was a great musician and as a matter of fact, there' so great clips of him and his band on the Old Grey Whistle Test playing "We Gotta Have Peace" and "Keep On Keeping On". I miss shows like that were serious musicians could play. Last show like that I enjoyed was Studio Jams that aired on Studio Jams. It's good to read posts from people who love good music.

Bumping this. Thanks Hump.

Timmy84 said:

Bumping this. Thanks Hump.

bashraka said:

Curtis Mayfield toured behind Joseph Scott-bass, Tyrone McCullen-drums, Craig McMullen-guitar and Henry Gibson-percussion from '70-'73 and even made a live album in 1971 called "Live at The Bitter End". A horn section with full brass is very costly to tour with, so I think for him using a rhythm section would be more cost effective and musically, it allowed for more space for every member of the ensemble. Curtis was a great musician and as a matter of fact, there' so great clips of him and his band on the Old Grey Whistle Test playing "We Gotta Have Peace" and "Keep On Keeping On". I miss shows like that were serious musicians could play. Last show like that I enjoyed was Studio Jams that aired on Studio Jams. It's good to read posts from people who love good music.

OMG, the bass playing on We Gotta Have Peace from the Old Grey Whistle Test is phenomenal! And the Curtis Live at the Bitter End album should be in every funk collection! What I love about Curtis live from this period is that without the horn sections and strings, that I feel drown out some of the songs on record, U got a feel 4 just how funky his band really was. Not that I don't love a good horn section (I LOVE Sly, Tower Of Power, James Brown, P-Funk, etc...), but his live sound really benefited from a lack of horns and strings in my opinion.

Excellent point