Back at it with the great Soul Supreme on keys and special guest Skratch Bastid on the cut! Paying homage to one of my favorites in this business, Large Pro aka Extra P aka Large Professor.

I was a 15 year old intern at Power Play Studios in Queens in the summer of ’92 watching him work on Akinyele’s album, and seeing that lit a fire. Then 20+ years later he gave me the encouragement to pursue drums full time when I was just getting started and trying to figure out what was next. His Instagram posts cutting up sections of music we never thought to explore and finding the groove within a groove is a testament to having one of the best ears in the game and it’s one of the FUNKIEST things you’ll see/hear. Salute to K Cut and Sir Scratch…Main Source. John Bowne’s finest!

I drum covered this tune six times in six years and retired it, but then the maestro Soul Supreme came in to play the actual wah wah man (synth/vocoder parts). Ha! This is the last time I cover this…and it is the funkiest. Salute to Mr. Isaac “Redd” Holt, one of my greatest inspirations on the set. And Eldee Young. “Baby, You Nasty,” “I Luh Huh,” “Keep It Koming” and the whole nine yards. Wah Wah Man out…

I played drums on the new Kelly Finnigan single, “Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)” and on other tracks on the forthcoming album (A Lover Was Born) that drops October 18 on Colemine Records. Nothing but top tier musicians in those crazy 14 hour sessions, and being in that company made me a better musician.

Check the single (and pre-order the album) on Bandcamp. The single is out now on all DSPs.

Excited for it, more to come!

Back to it with Soul Supreme and a funky Azymuth cut he picked from the 1973-75 demo volumes. The great Ivan “Mamão” Conti (this one gave me trouble ) & Azymuth – thank you!

Cover: “Electric Frog”  by Kool and the Gang (w/ the illustrious Soul Supreme)

On my favorite album of all time (Music is the Message) by my favorite band, I’ve been listening to this cut for 35 years (and trying to fine tune the groove for 12). Swinging that kick pattern and all the nuances at that tempo made it the most challenging of all these covers for me. The late great “Funky” George Brown, my greatest inspiration on the set. 

This strays furthest from the original of all the covers we’ve done but…

1) nailing everything 100% precise proves a point but sometimes you’ve gotta make it your own and

2) this song REALLY ain’t easy to duplicate.

Well, now it’s our own thing haha. Salute George, Ronald “Khalis” Bell, Kool and the whole Gang always. And Mr. Muhammad.

Some real heavy cop show funk from us! From day one The Du-Rites have kinda been on the fringes of the funk/soul world. Partly because we come from divergent music backgrounds but also we never tried to mimic any specific era. Funk = “retro” to many but we’re all over the place, so there’s no rules for what we use to get our sound, whether it’s trash or treasure. For this, Danger Mouse let me borrow two keyboards (the Korg Micro Preset and the Baldwin Discoverer) because I’ve been solely focused on drums and ain’t updated my studio in years. Pablo used a Peavey amp that our live show bassist Bill Harvey found on the sidewalk for trash pickup. I played a can of WD-40 for percussion in the second half of the song when the beat switches up. To us, it’s less about gear and year / label / region authenticity than using what you got and what you’re vibing with at any given moment to make it funky.

Check out the new tune on Bandcamp

Spotify

Apple Music

or whichever DSP you prefer. Dig!

We’re back on it with the NOLA funk of The Meters. Always inspired by Zig on the set! And my New Orleans family roots. Salute P.E., EPMD, etc.

Back on it with Soul Supreme. We stretched into some velour bathrobe funk at the end but it was calling! Always a fan of the Mashout. Respect to Fame, Billy and DJ Premier.

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It’s finally out! Recorded in the thick of the pandemic as warm-up jamming before working as a studio band, this Teo Macero-style editing of those jams is a funky as hell but still somewhat genre-less instrumental record that you can listen to and…come up with your own description/category! Having been with this band since 2016 (we were backing up soul singer Ben Pirani then), to see this record come to fruition is the full-circle result of 8 years of musical chemistry we built with constant touring, rehearsing, jamming and doing ’60s style recording sessions. It’s a wild ride but you WILL headnod.

The Means of Production: Rafferty Swink – Keyboards, Editing / Me (Jay Mumford) – Drums / Matt Gibbs – Guitar / Pat Carr – Bass, Moog Bass / Tre D’Ambrocia – Vibraphone / Ben Pirani – Guitar, Tambourine

Dig it on Spotify

Or Apple Music

Or pick up the vinyl on Royal Potato Family

The sound of now!

Dig.

Back on it with Soul Supreme, covering a more obscure cut from the great Roy Ayers. Found this album in pop’s record collection when I was 14 and I always loved it, but it took on new meaning when I first started playing drums to records and learning by ear, in 2012 or so. Dug in on this album often. It’s also the first documented session credit for the late great Alphonse Mouzon, who went on to be a prolific giant in drumming.