Donaldson Toussaint L’Ouverture Byrd II (December 9, 1932 - February 4, 2013) was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter, composer and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few hard bop musicians who successfully explored funk and soul while remaining a jazz artist.
Donald Byrd was considered one of the finest hard bop trumpeters of the post-Clifford Brown era. He recorded prolifically as both a leader and sideman from the mid-’50s into the mid-’60s, most often for Blue Note, where he established a reputation as a solid stylist with a clean tone, clear articulation, and a knack for melodicism.
Byrd was born in 1932 in Detroit, Michigan. His family came from the African-American middle-class. His father, Elijah Thomas Byrd, was a Methodist minister who greatly valued education and oversaw his son's schooling. His mother, Cornelia Taylor, introduced Byrd to jazz music and it was her brother who gave Byrd his first trumpet. He attended Cass Technical High School. He performed with Lionel Hampton before finishing high school.
After playing in a military band during a term in the United States Air Force, Byrd obtained a bachelor's degree in music from Wayne State University and a master's degree from Manhattan School of Music. While still at the Manhattan School, he joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers as Clifford Brown's successor.
Byrd’s Blue Note debut was 1958’s Off to the Races, and he and Adams collaborated on a series of excellent hard bop dates over the next three years, including Byrd in Hand (1959), At the Half Note Cafe, Vols. 1-2 (1960), The Cat Walk (1961), and Royal Flush (also 1961), among others. Another 1961 recording, Free Form, found Byrd giving a young Herbie Hancock some of his earliest exposure.
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Let's delve into one of his transitional albums. Ethiopian Knights was recorded in 2 sessions in August of 1972 and was released in the subsequent year on the Blue Note label. Byrd was no stranger to the label, as this was his nineteenth record with them alone. Donald Byrd had previously made a name for himself as a hard-bop trumpeter and was slowly pivoting towards the jazz-funk sound, as many of his compatriots were. This pivot first showed up in Fancy Free (1969), his first album featuring an electric instrument. Byrd would slowly, but eventually fully immerse himself in the jazz-funk sounds as the years passed by.
When I first stumbled upon Ethiopian Knights, I thought that this album would be his top selling. Surprisingly, that title belongs to Black Byrd (1973), quite literally his next release.
It’s rumored an uncredited appearance from producer Fonce Mizell was also part of these sessions. With just three songs at 37 minutes, “Ethiopian Knights” feels more like a statement of intent than an album.
Album cover of "Ethiopian Knights"
Musical Structure and Style
Now Ethiopian Knights is only three songs long with a total run time of over 36 minutes - that’s a lot of music crammed into 3 tracks. The bulk of the run time is in the first and last songs, “The Emperor” and “The Little Rasti.” The song in the middle, “Jamie,” is 3 and-a-half minutes long.
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Both “The Emperor” and “The Little Rasti” start off with a chorus-like introduction. However, the chorus is never played again in either song. I think this is so cool, it’s kind of like declaring to the world: “This is who we are, and this is what we do. Check this out!”
The rest of the song is nothing but solos. “The Emperor” holds a bit closer to the traditional jazz feel while “The Little Rasti” isn’t afraid to get a bit looser. If I had to choose a favorite between the two, I would have to go with “The Little Rasti,” simply for it’s length.
The thing that I appreciate the most about Ethiopian Knights (and jazz-funk in general) is the rhythm section. In traditional jazz, the rhythm section is pretty consistent in their playing. They usually don’t deviate too far away from the general rhythm; all of the artistic stylings are reserved for the soloists.
With Ethiopian Knights (and jazz-funk in general), the rhythm section gets in on the action, too. Wilton Felder, who would go on to Jackson 5 and Marvin Gaye fame, goes crazy on the bass in the background. You can hear him play the first half of a consistent bassline and play whatever he feels like on the second half.
Dr. Donald Byrd -- Jazz Legend
This goes for every instrumentalist in the rhythm section: the organ, the drums, the guitars, even the percussion get to express themselves in their own way. With everyone playing their own thing, you would think it would sound messy, but somehow it just works.
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The synergy that the players share in albums like Ethiopian Knights is magical to experience. The length of each of the songs plus the ideas being shared in the music makes this feel less like a studio album and more like a jam session between friends (that just happened to be recorded with professional studio equipment).
The only thing that snaps me back to reality that this is a studio album is the middle track “Jamie.” It has ballad-like feel to it and it serves as a transition between the two main tracks on the album. It’s apparent that this song has been rehearsed a few times, which is fine.
Donald Byrd, courtesy of Blue Note Records
Byrd's Fusion Era
Toward the end of the ’60s, Byrd became fascinated with Miles Davis’ move into fusion, and started recording his own forays into the field. In the early ’70s, with the help of brothers Larry and Fonce Mizell, Byrd perfected a bright, breezy, commercially potent take on fusion that was distinct from Davis, incorporating tighter arrangements and more of a smooth soul influence.
Opinions on this phase of Byrd’s career diverge wildly - jazz purists utterly despised it, branding Byrd a sellout and the records a betrayal of talent, but enraptured jazz-funk fans regard it as some of the most innovative, enduring work of its kind.
1969’s Fancy Free found Byrd using electric piano for the first time, with a spacy sound that recalled Davis’ In a Silent Way. Byrd truly came into his own as a fusion artist when he hooked up with brothers Larry and Fonce Mizell, who began to handle production, writing, and some musical support duties. Their first collaboration was 1972’s Black Byrd, an upbeat, funky blend of jazz and R&B.
Jazz critics detested the album and called Byrd all sorts of names, but the record was a smash hit; it became the biggest seller in Blue Note history, and just missed hitting number one on the R&B albums chart. In the wake of its success, Byrd formed a supporting group, the Blackbyrds, who were culled from the cream of his music students at Howard University and recorded through the rest of the ’70s.
Byrd went on to release a string of successful LPs in partnership with the Mizell Brothers, including the imaginary blaxploitation soundtrack Street Lady (1974), Stepping into Tomorrow (1975), the much-lauded Places and Spaces (1976), and Caricatures (1977). All made the Top Ten on the R&B album charts, and the Places and Spaces single “Change (Makes You Wanna Hustle)” even got substantial play in discotheques.
Jazz-funk fans revere this period in general, but usually reserve their highest praise for Street Lady and, especially, Places and Spaces.
Legacy and Influence
Donald Byrd’s ’70s records are awesome. Thanks to a fortunate turn of events that connected Byrd with disgruntled Motown songwriters and producers Fonce and Larry Mizell, he enjoyed crossover pop chart success and a pop fanbase, a rarity for a jazz musician during that decade. Starting with Black Byrd, he reaped a level of mainstream success that put Byrd albums in any hip record collection in Black households.
That level of ubiquity meant that when the kids in these households started digging into their parents’ dusty record collection looking for beats, he became foundational to the next generation of rappers, beatmakers, and R&B singers. Among those who sampled him: A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, Erykah Badu, Public Enemy, 2Pac, and J. Dilla, to name just a few of the 700+ samplers.
Just how Byrd made that leap from cognoscenti-approved hard bop classicism to hip jazz-funk remains under-documented. It was an evolution that occurred in the span of a fecund 3-year span starting in 1969: Fancy Free, Electric Byrd, the previously-unreleased Kofi, and Ethiopian Knights.
Attending his studies and his successful career in jazz came an increasing awareness of being a Black man in America. “We are trying to discover what is black in this music,” he told the Washington Post back in 1968.
Ethiopian Knights is an album by American trumpeter Donald Byrd featuring performances by Byrd with Thurman Green, Harold Land, Bobby Hutcherson, and Joe Sample released on the Blue Note label in 1972.
"Right from the stop-start bass groove that opens 'The Emperor,' it's immediately clear that Ethiopian Knights is more indebted to funk -- not just funky jazz, but the straight-up James Brown/Sly Stone variety -- than any previous Donald Byrd project. And, like a true funk band, Byrd and his group work the same driving, polyrhythmic grooves over and over, making rhythm the focal point of the music. Although the musicians do improvise, their main objective is to keep the grooves pumping, using their solos more to create texture than harmonic complexity.
Even if it isn't quite as consistent as Kofi and Electric Byrd, Ethiopian Knights is another intriguing transitional effort that deepens the portrait of Byrd the acid jazz legend." - AllMusic
Track Listing
Side One:
- The Emperor
- Jamie
Side Two:
- The Little Rasti
Musicians
- Donald Byrd, trumpet
- Harold Land, tenor sax
- Thurman Green, trombone
- Bobby Hutcherson, vibes
- Don Peake, guitar
- David Walker, guitar
- Greg Poree, guitar
- William Henderson III, piano
- Joseph Sample, organ
- Wilton Felder, bass
- Edward Greene, drums
