For some bizarre reason, I missed Art Ensemble of Chicago's funky "Rock Out" during my obsessive jazz-funk phase a year or two ago. Like some of the group's blues, "Rock Out" brings a "farmyard" quality of the band doing their best to sound like roosters and other farm animals. While doing this, they pay tribute to an incredibly catchy beat from a James Brown song ("Cold Sweat," according to Paul Steinbeck). As someone who always finds funk music from avant-garde jazz artists to be the most interesting in the genre, this unique number is certainly memorable and indicates how the group always had an ear to R&B and popular music. No surprise, really. How could anyone be married to Fontella Bass and not know a thing or two about popular music?
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