During the slow build up to his 2014 ‘Black Messiah’ album, D’Angelo began making scattered appearances after a long absence from the public eye. One of the most rare, magical gigs happened at the Brooklyn Bowl in the summer of 2013. I was working on my Finding the Funk documentary and thanks to Alan Leeds, D’s manager at the time, I was able to get in the camera well and shoot images for the doc and myself. I have held onto the WAV files from the show for over decade enjoying them privately and wanting to share them with D’s devoted, and music starved, fans. With word from Raphael Saadiq that he’s been back in the studio, I dug through my old hard drives and found a treasure trove of images, sound and admittedly shaky video.
This WAV file contains about an hour of sound and consist of covers of funky soul songs primarily from the early 1970s, including “Let Me Have It All” and “(You Caught Me) Smilin’ by Sly & the Family Stone,” Funkadelic’s “Cosmic Slop” and Bobby Womack’s “Woman’s Gotta Have It,” and several others. With just D’Angelo on various keys and Questlove on drums, the music has the feel of a relaxed cover band at a Brooklyn bar circa early ‘80s. The crowd at the Brooklyn Bowl wasn’t as black as that suggest and weren’t as hip to the nuances of R&B as the two music makers. That said, this a very enjoyable showcase for the music that informs D’Angelo’s musical vocabulary and his deep rooted feel for gospel inspired secular music.
Here’s hoping there are new D’Angelo gigs and music in the near future.
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