Description
Quincy Jones delivers pure sonic magic on You’ve Got It Bad Girl, a lush, groove-heavy journey through jazz, R&B, and soul. Featuring soulful takes on hits like Stevie Wonders Superstition and The Lovin Spoonfuls Summer in the City, this album perfectly embodies the smooth yet funky production style that made Q a legend. This remastered 180g vinyl reissue brings every note and nuance to life, giving new depth to an essential ’70s classic.
Quincy Jones followed up Smackwater Jack and his supervision of Donny Hathaway’s Come Back Charleston Blue soundtrack with this, a mixed bag that saw him inching a little closer toward the R&B-dominated approach that reached full stride on the following Body Heat and peaked commercially with The Dude. That said, the album’s most notorious cut is “The Streetbeater” – better known as the Sanford & Son theme, a novelty for most but also one of the greasiest, grimiest instrumental fusions of jazz and funk ever laid down – while its second most noteworthy component is a drastic recasting of “Summer in the City,” as heard in the Pharcyde’s “Passin’ Me By,” where the frantic, bug-eyed energy of the Lovin’ Spoonful original is turned into a magnetically lazy drift driven by Eddie Louis’ organ, Dave Grusin’s electric piano, and Valerie Simpson’s voice. (Simpson gives the song a “Summertime”-like treatment.)
Between that, the title song (a faithfully mellow version, with Jones’ limited but subdued vocal lead), a medley of Aretha Franklin’s “Daydreaming” and Ewan MacColl’s “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” and a light instrumental, roughly half the album is mood music, and it’s offset with not just “The Streetbeater” but a large-scale take on “Manteca,” a spooky-then-overstuffed “Superstition” (where the uncredited Billy Preston, Bill Withers, and Stevie Wonder are billed as “three beautiful brothers”), and the “Streetbeater” companion “Chump Change” (co-written with Bill Cosby). The best here can be had on comps, but the album is by no means disposable. (via AllMusic)
Label: A&M Records
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Stereo
Reissued: 2025 / Original: 1973
Genre: Jazz
Style: Soul-Jazz, Jazz-Funk
File under: Jazz // Soul-Jazz/Jazz-Funk
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