Tarika Blue

Biography

Led by NY session player Phil Clendeninn, Tarika Blue was a lyrical, highly melodic fusion/jazz-funk outfit that got a small pursuing (mostly in the East Coastline) within the ’70s. Clendeninn’s combo wasn’t aswell referred to as Lonnie Liston Smith & the Cosmic Echoes, but you can find certain parallels between those two East Coastline bands. Just like the Cosmic Echoes, Tarika Blue preferred a very religious, mystical strategy that owed something to acoustic post-bop in addition to spirit, funk, pop, and rock and roll. Tarika Blue distributed the Cosmic Echoes’ gratitude of modal post-bop heavyweights like John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders, Charles Lloyd, and Yusef Lateef — actually, Smith and Clendeninn are both pianist/keyboardists who have been affected by Tyner’s playing. But Clendeninn wasn’t a jazz purist any longer than Smith and his Cosmic Echoes had been; both of these used electric devices and had been well alert to what was happening within the R&B and rock and roll worlds. Tarika Blue as well as the Cosmic Echoes both offered accessible instrumentals in addition to vocal offerings, but while Smith frequently featured his sibling Donald Smith, Clendeninn favored to use feminine vocalists. Clendeninn, a indigenous New Yorker, created Tarika Blue around 1973, when he was students at Syracuse University or college in Upstate NY and was performing a large amount of commuting to and from ny. Clendeninn, bassist Barry Coleman, and drummer Kevin Atkins had been the primary of the group, along with other music artists who used Tarika Blue included Marvin Blackman (tenor sax), Justo Almario (soprano sax), Adam Mason (guitar), and Japanese immigrant Ryo Kawasaki (guitar). The band’s different female performers included Tequila (who got caused drummer Tony Williams’ Life time), Lisa Fisher, Irene Datcher, and Dolores Smith. It had been in 1974 that Clendeninn fulfilled Hank O’Neal, leader of the indie, New York-based Chiaroscuro Information. O’Neal’s company is most beneficial known for hard bop and golf swing, but he produced an exemption in Tarika Blue’s case and finished up co-producing their self-titled debut record in 1976 and their second record, The Blue Route, in 1977. While Tarika Blue’s initial LP was totally instrumental, The Blue Route highlighted Irene Datcher and Dolores Smith on vocals. It ought to be observed that around 1974 and 1975, Clendeninn was also an associate of the disco/spirit/funk outfit known as ny Band, whose various other people included guitarist Nile Rodgers as well as the past due bassist Bernard Edwards — a couple of years afterwards, Rodgers and Edwards founded the seminal disco-funk powerhouse Chic and became superstar manufacturer/songwriters. Tarika Blue under no circumstances recorded another record, but their recordings continuing to curiosity people lengthy after their break up. In 2001, metropolitan contemporary/neo-soul superstar Erykah Badu sampled Tarika Blue’s “Dreamflower” on her behalf smash strike “Didn’t Cha Find out.” “Dreamflower” in addition has been sampled with the Underwolves, a United kingdom jungle/drum’n’bass/electronica work. In 2002, Chiaroscuro reissued both of Tarika Blue’s ’70s LPs on the self-titled Compact disc, which arrived on the business’s Downtown Audio label.

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