Roy Ayers - A Profile

Roy Ayers celebrated his 82nd birthday yesterday. He was born in L.A. on 10 Sep 1940 to musical parents, his father played trombone and mother the piano.

He began his musical career in 1961 and released his first album "West Coast Vibes" in 1963 on United Artists. Later that year he featured on vibraphone on "The Jack Wilson Quartet" album and another in 1966 "Ramblin'" joining flutist Herbie Mann the same year. The first Jack Wilson Quarter album was released on Atlantic who must have seen something in him as he proceeded to release his next three albums on the label in 1967, 1968 and 1969 all produced by Herbie Mann. Some jazz heavyweights were on the sessions including Gary Bartz (sax), Ron Carter (bass), Grady Tate (drums).

Story has it that Ayers was taken to see jazz band leader and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton at the Paramount Theatre when was 5 years old and during the concert Hampton interacted with the crowd and handed him a pair of vibraphone mallets, and the rest is history!

In 1970 he signed with Polydor releasing "Ubiquity" under his own name but later formed six piece band Roy Ayers Ubiquity. He released around 9 studio albums and a live album as Roy Ayers Ubiquity between 1972-77 and around another 50 under his own name. By an standards that is phenomenal output, 60 albums in as many years since he debuted. Then  there are the multitude of albums he has featured on. His latest album was recorded in 2020 "Jazz Is Dead 2".

Ayers is regarded as a pioneer in both jazz-funk and also acid jazz. As a predominantly album artist he didn't trouble the charts too much with singles with none reaching the Billboard Hot 100 although he had a total of fifteen enter the R&B chart with six reaching the top 40. His two biggest records must be "Everybody Loves The Sunshine", which has legendary status amongst hip-hoppers having been heavily sampled, and of course his biggest chart success "Running Away" (#19 R&B)

"Running Away" was first sampled by Eastbound Expressway on "Never Let Go", a disco song contrived by Ian Levine with Fiachra Trench in 1978. The most well know sample of it is probably by A Tribe Called Quest in 1989 on "Description Of A Fool".

A lot of music to wade through, but here's a selection of 20 of his best!

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