Soul-funk-jazz legend FredWesley

Mon 13th Jul, 2009 in Local News

Soul-funk-jazz legend Fred Wesley is set to hit it and quit it with two intimate shows in Sydney and Melbourne.

Wesley made his name playing trombone with James Brown, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Ike and Tina Turner and Count Basie; blowing his horn on classic tunes like House Party, Pass The Peas, Flash Light, The Big Payback, Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud) and Licking Stick. He also headlined the classic JBs records Damn Right I Am Somebody and Breakin’ Bread.

His groundbreaking work helped to define the James Brown sound between 1968 and 1975 – as he wrote in his memoir Hit Me, Fred: Recollections of a Sideman – œI completed [Brown’s] creations, I followed his blueprint. He would give me horn things to write, but sometimes maybe it would be incoherent musically and I would have to straighten it out, so to speak. When it came out of my brain, it would be a lot of James Brown’s ideas and my organization.’

Catch Wesley and his six piece band in August at The Hi-Fi, Melbourne on the 8th and on the 9th at The Basement, Sydney.