Roy Ayers Ubiquity: "He's Coming"

One of the headiest, edgiest, funkiest LP’s in existence.  I really couldn’t believe my luck when I found an OG copy of this one for as cheap as I did ($12!), and since that purchase I can’t stop listening to it, though I’d heard it before I found the original and owned a reissue of it for years.  I’m not sure how I can add to the well-embedded discourse that’s already occurred regarding this record; it’s a classic, straight-up, but an underground classic.  Its hazy, thick, pre-hip-hop textures are the stuff of dreams; this is an album to get lost in.  Most famous is the track “We Live In Brooklyn Baby,” sampled infinitely by producers throughout the known universe and beyond, but there is so much more to “He’s Coming” than that one song.  There’s the laconic, revolutionary meditation “Ain’t Got Time” (one of Ayers’ most political grooves), the buoyant, percussive title track, the heavy jazz-funk of “Fire Weaver” (which Ayers also recorded with David “Fathead” Newman for Newman’s “Lonely Avenue” LP).  The sidemen chosen for this project are a crucial piece of the whole too; major names like Billy Cobham, Ron Carter and Sonny Fortune are all present, along with keyboardist Harry Whitaker, who, more than a sideman, was essentially Roy Ayers’ co-writer at this point, and a HUGE part of the sound of the early Ubiquity records.  This album was perhaps Ayers’ first fully realized funk opus, for while he had already ventured well into the funk-fusion genre by the time he released “He’s Coming,” he hadn’t quite had the moment where all his ambitions and stylistic blending had yet locked into place.  “He’s Coming” IS that moment, a record with such a wide-ranging and continued influence that its ripple effect is still being felt well into the 21^st century.