The Crusaders

Though originally conceived as a modern jazz act in the 1950s, The Jazz Crusaders meandered through R&B, soul and funk trends as they became a long-running musical institution and were responsible for a classic slice of 1970s disco pop. High school friends Joe Sample (piano), Wilton Felder (saxophone) and Stix Hooper (drums) started playing together in their teens under the name The Swingsters, but really got serious when they moved from Houston, Texas to Los Angeles in 1960, recruited trombone player Wayne Henderson and signed to the Pacific Jazz label for debut Freedom Jazz. Early albums such as Tough Talk (1963) and Stretchin' Out (1964) tended to be playful hard be-bop affairs inspired by the freedom of John Coltrane; but Chile Con Soul (1965) adopted a Latin-pop feel and by the 1970s they'd turned to electric instruments and become one of the funkiest acts around. They re-branded simply as The Crusaders and hit their stride with albums Southern Comfort (1974), Chain Reaction (1975) and Those Southern Knights (1976), but will always be remembered for their 1979 hit Street Life, featuring Randy Crawford, which was a strutting disco-funk anthem that made the US Top 20 and was later used in Quentin Tarantino's film Jackie Brown. The band's live album Royal Jam (1984), recorded at the Royal Festival Hall in London with B.B. King and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, was another high point, but in recent years the "fathers of jazz-funk-fusion" have returned to their more traditional roots and were still performing regularly six decades after originally forming.

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