Originally recorded as a movie soundtrack, the funk band’s sixth album attained a life of its own thanks to its pioneering ...

Vibraphonist Roy Ayers, an influential band leader and pioneering composer and producer of jazz, funk, soul and R&B ... how I wanted it to sound: a mix of vibraphone, piano and a synthesiser.

A vibrant mix of Hathaway’s own material and covers ... An early example of untrammelled and deeply joyful funk and soul, it stands apart as a horn-filled standard-bearer.

Funk music started to emerge in black American communities, combining elements of established genres – such as soul, jazz and R ... They used a mix of low and high-note rhythms, and a slap ...

That’s the level of accomplishment we’re talking about. And that doesn’t begin to measure how Mayfield’s soul-funk imagination cast its shadow over such disparate sounds as the lush ...

The vibraphonist, producer and composer played on some of the hardest-grooving soul jazz of the 1960s before becoming a crossover jazz-funk hitmaker ... washed out in the mix by guitar and Fender ...

Tributes have been paid to Gwen McCrae, the much-loved and influential US funk and soul singer, who has died aged 81 after a long illness. Affectionately known as the "queen of the rare groove ...