Summer School Funk: Five Tracks Out Of 1970s Houston

Enlarge Courtesy of Bubbha Thomas

A pointer for Bubbha Thomas’ giveaway jazz classes, taken in 1972.

Courtesy of Bubbha Thomas

A pointer for Bubbha Thomas’ giveaway jazz classes, taken in 1972.

I detected a Houston jazz drummer Bubbha Thomas’ albums around a same time we detected those of a Kashmere High School Stage Band. Thirteen years ago, friends in a Space City — meaningful we would hack adult a resources of breaks and beats if they could offer internal LPs or 45s in trade — mailed me copies of Kashmere’s Out of Gas (But Still Burning) and Energy Control Center, a record done by Thomas’ group, The Lightmen Plus One. we can still entrance a audio impress that those annals burnt in my mind. The Kashmere manuscript contained all we desired about uncontrollable funk; Energy Control Center hold all we desired about jazz’s vast expression.

It wasn’t prolonged until we contacted Thomas to buy some of a annals we didn’t own, and to talk him for a radio uncover we hosted on Vanderbilt University’s radio station, a now-defunct WRVU. It was afterwards that we schooled of his label, called Lightin’ Records, and of 45s so singular that copies had never flush in a collecting community.

Movie Reviews

‘Thunder Soul’: ’70s Sensation Dusts Off Its Groove

The many engaging 45s that we purchased from Thomas were dual with “Not for Sale” stamps on them. A proof record is a rarest of a rare, and we hoped that these dual 45s — credited to an garb with a unmanageable name of Musicians From a Summer Program for Youthful Musicians — would be as good as their titles (“Jazz O.D.,” “Brougham”) promised. They were. we begged Thomas to tell me more.

Thomas told me that, nonetheless his rope had constructed some excellent talent (notably a fledgling Ronnie Laws) who left Houston for a jazz metropolises of New York and Los Angeles, he could never dried a city that reared him. Instead, he motionless to educate. His biggest present to a city of Houston is a module — celebrating a 40th anniversary this year — that constructed those dual 45s. Thomas had founded a Summer Jazz Workshop since of troubles he’d encountered in college.

“When we went to college, we didn’t have any believe of song theory,” he said. “I could review from sheets and things like that, though it was a struggle, ’cause we was behind many of a kids that were in my class. So we motionless that we would do something about it.”

He couldn’t have shaped his seminar during a some-more well-suited time. In a early 1970s, Houston’s high-school theatre bands were during their peak: The Kashmere Stage Band would win “Best High School Stage Band in a Nation” in 1972. During a summer months, a brew of center school, high propagandize and a smattering of college students honed their chops underneath a instruction of The Lightmen and reputable educators like a Kashmere Stage Band’s late bandleader, Conrad O. Johnson. The seminar consisted of instruction, opening and a business march in releasing records.

“We’d go on margin trips to see how annals were made,” Thomas said. “We attempted to take a kids by a whole routine — essay a songs, selecting a right crew and afterwards going forward to record.”

Thomas expelled a sum of 8 45s by Musicians From a Summer Program for Youthful Musicians via a ’70s on Lightin’, and I’ve collected my favorites here.