One of the funkiest non-p-funk related albums I know. I thought. Because, if you read in the liner notes who's playing on this 1982 album you'll find that Dennis Chambers plays drums. When I looked it up on Discogs, a user says: "Wicked tight shit. Dennis Chambers on drums = Quality control". That pretty much nails it. But it's not only Dennis Chambers. It's so creative and varied, jazz harmonies and funk discipline, from this great musician who died 3 years ago, only 59 years old. He only made 2 albums under his own name. One in 1982 and one in 2002. Then I looked up Don Blackman on Wikipedia and it actually says that he played with Parliament/Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire and Roy Ayers... and he played a lot of jazz/fusion and later hiphop. Lots of credits for his participation in the projects of other people Here's one of my favourite tracks of the album:
This is the title track called Dark Horse. Just as in the album version it features sax and piano solos. It's a pretty wild performance, matching today's start of the Chinese New Year: THE YEAR OF THE FIRE HORSE!Live at Bimhuis, we added a drum solo. Afterwards, I decided to seperate it from the song and post it as an extra video below. Why not in one video?Because the video would become very very long and experience shows that people will not stick around for longer that 6-7 minutes. Yoràn's free drum solo is actually really great and in this seperate video, the true drum lovers can watch and learn from his drum story telling. Sometimes people ask me; What are drummers doing in their solos? To give you an idea of what Yoràn is doing in his solo: He starts with a pattern, an idea. He keeps the pattern going and plays variations over it. Then he combines it with soloing over it with call and reponse phrases and slides in new patterns. Technically it's interesting because he demonstrates a lot of independence and speed, as well as dynamics and sound colours, while telling a story, which means in musical context that the solo has certain elements which can be recognized by the (trained) listener. Many people in the Western part of the world miss the melodic and harmonic context during a free drum solo. It's fair to say a free drum solo without any accompaniment is like an abstract painting. Within the given context you can hear and see what you can manage, depending on your own frame of reference and expectations. In the end, it's about: does it resonate with you? Because both, the painting and the free drum solo, they lack a clear subject (no lyrics, no recognizable image), both forms are highly subjective and open to the interpretation of the audience. They function as a conversation between the artist's feeling and the viewer's/listener's perception.But you also can listen to it with a pure analytical drum ear and try to follow the patterns and phrases. As a musician and human I (try to) do both :-) Enjoy!More info:Susanne Alt: sax, Matthijs Geerts and Ike van Bergen: keys, Thomas Pol: bass, Yoràn Vroom: drums, Helene Jank: percussion Performed at 16th of January 2026 at Bimhuis, Amsterdam, Recorded by Onno Prillwitz Filmed by Robert Glass and Albert Nooij. - One of the funkiest non-p-funk related albums I know. I thought. Because, if you read in the liner notes who's playing on this 1982 album you'll find that Dennis Chambers plays drums. When I looked it up on Discogs, a user says: Wicked tight shit. Dennis Chambers on drums = Quality control. That pretty much nails it. But it's not only Dennis Chambers. It's so creative and varied, jazz harmonies and funk discipline, from this great musician who died 3 years ago, only 59 years old. He only made 2 albums under his own name. One in 1982 and one in 2002.Then I looked up Don Blackman on Wikipedia and it actually says that he played with Parliament/Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire and Roy Ayers...and he played a lot of jazz/fusion and later hiphop. Lots of credits for his participation in the projects of other peopleHere's one of my favourite tracks of the album:okay, one more!
