Alex Henderson

Tease
Tease  [Expanded Edition)

It’s been 35 years since the formation of Tease. But Kipper Jones, who spent almost a decade as the band’s lead singer, remembers Tease’s creation like it was yesterday.

In the late 1970s, a teenage Jones played with bassist Cornelius Mims and keyboardist Rex Salas in a Los Angeles-based cover band called Seventh Heavan (as opposed to Seventh Heaven). Meanwhile, drummer Derek Organ and his brother, guitarist Tommy Organ, were members of the L.A.-based outfit Fifth Avenue. And Tease began when, in 1979, members of Seventh Heavan joined forces with members of Fifth Avenue.

“The climate in R&B was very band-heavy in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s,” Jones recalled during a June 2014 interview. “L.A. had Rose Royce, who were one of the larger outfits that became successful. And there were Ohio bands like Lakeside and the Ohio Players. The band I was in with Cornelius, Seventh Heavan, was a large band that had like ten or 11 people. Cornelius and I and Rex Salas wanted to get out of the larger band, Seventh Heavan, and form a smaller band. So we quit Seventh Heavan, and we got Derek and Tommy Organ from their band, Fifth Avenue. Derek and Tommy were just so good. Derek was way ahead of any drummers in town who were our age—we were like 17, 18 years old at that point.”

Jones, Mims and Derek Organ all graduated from high school in 1979. With a lineup consisting of Jones on lead vocals, Mims on bass, Salas on keyboards, Derek Organ on drums and percussion and Thomas Organ and Josef Parson on guitar, the new band went about trying to market itself—and in 1981, Tease got a lucky break when they participated in a battle-of-the-bands competition held by KACE-FM (one of L.A.’s R&B stations at the time). Producer/drummer Ollie E. Brown, a native of Detroit, heard Tease at KACE’s competition and became their mentor.

“Ollie signed us to his production company, Brown Sugar Productions, and vowed to get us a record deal,” remembers Jones, who is now 52. “We showcased for well known people in the industry like Clive Davis, Larkin Arnold and Stevie Wonder himself. We kept getting ‘no, no, no,’ but we finally got a ‘yes’ from the folks at RCA Records. In 1982, we started working on the first Tease album, and in 1983, it came out.”

Reissued by FunkytownGrooves 31 years after its initial release on RCA, this self-titled debut album underscores Tease’s funk and soul influences as well as their interest in rock. Tease’s love of Parliament/Funkadelic, Cameo and Prince comes through loud and clear, but there is a definite rock influence on funk smokers like “Put the Brakes On, Baby,” “Boys and Girls” and “Bite” as well as on ballads and slow jams such as “I Found in You” and “Part of Me.” Meanwhile, “What Should I Do” and “Saturday Night” both have a strong new wave flavor.

Back in 1983, Jones explains, Tease’s members were paying close attention to L.A.’s rock scene—including black rockers like Fishbone and the Bus Boys. “We were very close to the Bus Boys,” Jones notes, “and Fishbone were our contemporaries as well. Matter of fact, I just chatted with Chris Dowd from Fishbone the other  day. Chris was saying, ‘Thank you, Kipper, so much for not shunning us like so many black people did in that era.’ Some black people were like, ‘Oh, man, I don’t want to hear that white boy shit.’ But I wasn’t like that at all when I heard Fishbone. I was like, ‘Yes sir!’ I embraced Fishbone, and I was down in the mosh pit with everybody else.”

Interviewed separately in June 2014, Mims recalled: “As we crossed into the ‘80s, we began experimenting with songwriting—with Kipper and Rex Salas leading that charge. By 1983, we had done enough experimenting, played enough gigs and had enough fights as a band to actually compile a batch of concepts and ideas—which would ultimately evolve into our first RCA album. So, as you may hear, this album is a reflection of who we admired at that time: artists like Prince, Cameo, Devo, Missing Persons, etc.”

“By 1983,” Mims continued, “we were almost equally rock heads and funk heads. There were a couple of new music cultures happening then—new wave and punk, which Kipper initially gravitated towards—and we all basically followed his lead. Also, via the influence of Prince—who always could rock out with the best of ‘em—we most definitely had a major rock vibe attached to us. Tommy Organ and Josef Parson were also massive contributors to the rockness of Tease.”

When Tease started in 1979, funk bands with large horn sections were still burning up the R&B charts. But in 1983, funk was moving in a more electronic, synthesizer-minded direction—and “Pretty Little Lady,” “Flash” and other songs on this reissue reflect funk’s evolution. “By 1983, the synthesizer age was in full swing,” Mims observes. “Of course, it began in the ‘70s and could be heard in the music of Parliament, the Ohio Players, Billy Preston, the Commodores and many others. But in the ‘80s, synthesized brass, bass and drums really took hold in major ways in R&B and funk. Since that was the new thing, we just basically kept up with the Joneses and dialed into the synth revolution. We were truly fascinated with the strides that technology was taking and dove into it head first.”

After this album, Tease recorded two more albums before breaking up. Jones (kipperjones.com) went on to pursue a solo career, recording the excellent but underexposed Ordinary Story for Virgin Records in 1990. Jones has enjoyed some major triumphs as a songwriter: “The Right Stuff,” which he wrote with Salas, was a #4 R&B/#1 dance hit for Vanessa Williams in 1988—and “I Wanna Be Down,” which Jones co-wrote, took Brandy to #1 R&B and #6 pop in Billboard in 1994. 

The funk of the early 1980s continues to excite listeners many years later, and as this 1983 debut demonstrates, Tease had no problem keeping it funky and doing some rocking and rolling at the same time.

—Alex Henderson, July 2014

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Salon.com, Creem, The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, JazzTimes, Jazziz, Cash Box, HITS, CD Review, Skin Two, Black Beat, The Pasadena Weekly, Black Radio Exclusive (BRE), Music Connection, Latin Style, The New York City Jazz Record, Jazz Inside Magazine and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) also contributed several thousand CD reviews to the popular Allmusic.com website and The All Music Guide’s series of music reference books.