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 1972's "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.
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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 1972's "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.
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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. "I'm having fun laughing with it," he has said. "I don't mind what they call me, that's 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 didn't 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
Mann's hit Memphis Underground album and recording three solo albums for Atlantic under
Mann's 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
Guru's 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. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
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