George Duke: Feel [MPS]

Why you'll love it

This MPS reissue is an audiophile analogue remaster on 180g vinyl, with liner notes and a photo of the original master tape box inside. Feel reached No. 17 on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart and is where Duke's synth-orchestra sound first took shape.

This edition

• Remastered
• 180g vinyl
• Liner notes and master tape box photo insert

About the album

Before he was producing hits for half of Los Angeles, George Duke was a keyboard wizard with a lot of ideas and a German jazz label willing to hear all of them. Feel, his fourth studio album, came out on MPS in October 1974, and it's the one where he started building whole orchestras out of synthesizers.

The band is a fusion who's who: Airto Moreira on percussion, Flora Purim singing on "Love" and "Yana Aminah," John Heard on bass and Leon Ndugu Chancler, who drums on and wrote "The Once Over." Frank Zappa, Duke's boss at the time, plays guitar on "Love" and "Old Slippers" under the name Obdewl'l X. "Funny Funk" opens with exactly what it promises, and the title track shows off Duke's warm, soulful singing. Kerry McNabb recorded and mixed the sessions, and Baldhard G. Falk produced for MPS.

AllMusic called it the record where his ear for melody and his keyboard chops first set him apart, and it points straight at the funk and soul hits to come. Zappa's disguise, for the record, works roughly as well as a false moustache at a family reunion.

Also at Kops: more George Duke on vinyl · browse Modern Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On MPS (cat# 21 22312-4), a reissue of the 1974 album.