Book Excerpt of the Day

Coffy, the lively vigilante picture starring blaxploitation queen Pam Grier, features an outstanding Latin jazz-funk score by vibraphonist Roy Ayers. Tracks like “Coffy is the Color,” “Priscilla’s Groove” and “Aragon” percolate with irrepressible rhythms, dynamic keyboard figures and a relentless groove. One would be hard pressed to name a more high-energy blaxploitation score. “King George,” with its lowdown funk and two-channel “dialogue” celebrating a certain pimp’s powers of persuasion, may be the coolest mack daddy theme ever. There is even a bit of psychedelia mixed in (“End of Sugarman”).

– from Chapter 1: Crime Jazz and Felonious Funk of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

“More than any other pre-blaxploitation film, Cotton Comes to Harlem… set the template for blaxploitation movies to come. The original LP cover features a proto hip-hop painting by Robert McGinnis that includes a gold Rolls Royce, bikini-clad babes and the movie heroes brandishing huge handguns. Ironically, the artist is white, and so is the funky score’s composer.”

– from Chapter 1: Crime Jazz & Felonious Funk of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

“The importance of music to black crime films can’t be overstated. Bear in mind that radio spots for films like Shaft and Superfly often call attention to the soundtrack artist, practically in the same breath as the movie’s star. This emphasis on the music further reinforces the idea that in blaxploitation films the music is as much a character as the flesh and blood men and women who populate the frame. Outside of Hollywood’s classic movie musicals, no other genre can truly claim that distinguishing feature.”

– from Chapter 1: Crime Jazz & Felonious Funk of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979

Book Excerpt of the Day

“To break down the racial wall entirely it took a film made by a black person for a black audience… Melvin Van Peebles’ scandalous, X-rated, audaciously titled feature, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song. As the film’s writer, director, producer, soundtrack composer and star, Van Peebles almost single-handedly activated the genre that would later be dubbed blaxploitation. In order to avoid industry union rules, he claimed to be making a porno. It become the highest grossing independent film up until that time, pulling in $16 million with extremely limited distribution. Unlike today’s ‘indie’ hits, however, it did not garner the filmmaker any big-studio offers. The film’s gritty subject matter and provocative marketing tagline (“Rated X by an All White Jury”) served to alienate mainstream Hollywood from the brash auteur…. Hollywood’s response to Sweetback’s stunning success was to transform a fairly generic crime thriller about a private detective named John Shaft into a genre-busting box-office smash.”

– from Chapter 1: Crime Jazz & Felonious Funk of Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979