Leon Spencer: "Where I'm Coming From"

Let’s hear it for the Prestige jazz-funky organ breaks!  Here’s another treasure from the seemingly limitless world of Prestige—a world where the house band is always bumpin’ (Melvin Sparks and Idris Muhammad, anyone?), the production is pristine (recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s legendary studio in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), and the frontman, in this case Leon Spencer, grooves off into the beyond and back again!  There was a four- to five-year period when this style of organ jazz-funk was hugely popular, and as a result everybody and their mother proceeded to get in on the craze.  Spencer stands apart from the pack with a singular technique that, while influenced by the older masters (Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff), was very forward thinking in its approach, and really, even the cats that are sampling his beats now haven’t caught up with his vision.  This particular album of his is an all-killer, no-filler JAM, so let the funk ease on inside and do its funky thang.  For real.