Alex Henderson

Bobbi Humphrey
Tailor Made

Next to Hubert Laws and the late Herbie Mann, Bobbi Humphrey was the most celebrated jazz-funk/fusion flutist of the 1970s. Humphrey, like Laws and Mann, never claimed to be a jazz purist or a straight-ahead bebopper: her Blue Note recordings of the early to mid-1970s favored a groove-oriented mixture of jazz, funk, soul and rock. And Texas is where it all began for the talented flutist/singer.

Born Barbara Ann Humphrey in Marlin, Texas on April 25, 1950 and raised in Dallas, she took up the flute in high school and went on to study at Texas Southern University in Houston and Southern Methodist University in Dallas—and it was at Southern Methodist that she met the iconic trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, one of the founders of bebop. Gillespie urged her to spend some time in New York City, which she did. And when she was 21, Humphrey signed a contract with Blue Note Records.

In 1971, Humphrey recorded her first album, Flute-In—which was engineered by Rudy Van Gelder (easily the most famous engineer in the history of jazz) and boasted an impressive cast of jazz improvisers that included Lee Morgan on trumpet, Hank Jones on piano, George Duvivier on bass, Gene Bertoncini on guitar and Idris Muhammad on drums. And Humphrey continued to build her Blue Note catalogue with Dig This! in 1972, Blacks and Blues and Live at Montreux in 1973, Satin Doll in 1974 and Fancy Dancer in 1975.

Some of her Blue Note singles became minor hits on Billboard’s R&B singles charts in the United States, including “Harlem River Drive” and “Chicago, Damn” in 1973, “Fun House” in 1974 and the Latin-flavored “Una Está” in 1975. Humphrey struck a tasteful balance between the improvisation of jazz and the immediacy of funk, soul and rock, and her Blue Note albums typically performed well on both the jazz charts and the R&B charts: in the U.S., for example, Satin Doll reached #5 on Billboard’s R&B albums chart and #6 on Billboard’s jazz albums chart—and the fact that the album contained performances of both the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn standard “Satin Doll” and Stevie Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” underscored her desire to have credibility in the jazz world as well as crossover appeal.

But Humphrey’s Blue Note period officially came to an end in 1977, when she moved to Epic/CBS Records (now Epic Records/Sony Music) with Tailor Made—an album that marked a change of direction for her. The production became slicker, vocal offerings became more plentiful, and Humphrey made a concerted effort to increase her visibility in the R&B market. Humphrey had done some singing at Blue Note, but she did more singing at Epic—which made a point of emphasizing her talents as a vocalist.

After Tailor Made (which FunkyTownGrooves is also reissuing on CD in 2014), Humphrey continued in that R&B-minded direction with 1978’s Freestyle and 1979’s The Good Life (which was her third Epic album). And the interesting thing is that even though The Good Life has more soul and funk content than jazz content, it fared better on the jazz charts than on the R&B charts: in the U.S., The Good Life reached #12 on Billboard’s jazz albums chart but stalled at #64 on Billboard’s R&B albums chart.

Like George Duke, Patrice Rushen, Roy Ayers and George Benson, Humphrey first made a name for herself as an instrumentalist but turned out to be quite appealing as a singer—and her talents as a vocalist obviously weren’t overlooked by the R&B department at Epic. The Good Life contains a few jazz-funk instrumentals—including “Say the Word” and “Sweet ‘N’ Low”—but it is Humphrey the R&B vocalist rather than Humphrey the jazz-funk instrumentalist who dominates this reissue. And her warm, sweetly girlish vocal style serves her well whether she is turning up the funk on the single “Love When I’m in Your Arms” (which became a minor hit), favoring a congenial soul groove on the title track, showing her romantic side on the quiet storm ballad “Years From Now” or catching disco fever on “Living for the Music.”

In 1979, disco was huge: 1979 saw the release of definitive disco classics such as Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls,” Chic’s “Good Times,” Deniece Williams’ “I’ve Got the Next Dance,” France Joli’s “Come to Me,” Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Boogie Wonderland” and Sister Sledge’s Chic-produced “He’s the Greatest Dancer.”  And “Living for the Music” was clearly one of Humphrey’s most overt efforts to appeal to the booming disco market.

Although it doesn’t contain a lot of jazz, The Good Life boasts some skillful jazz musicians in its lineup—including trumpeter Jon Faddis, guitarist Eric Gale, bassist Marcus Miller and keyboardist Richard Tee. But then, Faddis, Gale, Miller and Tee weren’t strictly jazz musicians in 1979: all of them were also quite capable of playing soul and funk. Miller, in fact, became as famous for his work with Luther Vandross as he became for his work with trumpeter Miles Davis, alto saxophonist David Sanborn and keyboardist/pianist Lonnie Liston Smith.  And Ralph MacDonald, a busy session player during the 1970s, is heard on percussion. Sadly, some of these musicians are no longer with us: Gale died in 1994, MacDonald in 2011.

The Good Life turned out to be Humphrey’s last album for Epic. After that, she recorded sporadically, briefly resurfacing on the independent, Jackson, Mississippi-based Malaco Records with City Beat in 1989 and releasing Passion Flute on her own label, Paradise Sounds Records, in 1994.  But Humphrey, now 64, continues to perform live and still has her followers—some of whom know her for instrumental jazz-funk and fusion, some of whom know her for vocal-oriented soul, funk and disco, and some of whom know her for all of the above. Humphrey, to be sure, has worn a variety of hats over the years—and as The Good Life demonstrates, Humphrey the R&B singer was taking center stage in 1979. 

—Alex Henderson, September 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.