Make The Road By Walking

We Say...

Review by Michaelangelo Matos

Perhaps you thought, as I did initially, that "Roc Boys," Jay-Z's brilliant 2007 single, was bolstered by horns his producer P. Diddy had found (or had one of his minions find) off some early '70s funk record that, up till then, had somehow gone unmolested by crate-digging hip-hop DJs. As it turns out, the sample wasn't off an old album, but from a recent 7-inch: Menahan Street Band's "Make the Road by Walking," issued in 2006. Menahan Street Band is a side project of Thomas Brenneck, a multi-instrumentalist who'd made sizable contributions to the neo-funk acts in the Daptone Records stable; the label in turn issued MSB's music on a sub-label, Dunham.

Brenneck's first full album comes with the Jay-Z selling point. But even if you notice how much harder the rapper's drum track kicks than the original's, it hardly matters, because not only is "Make the Road" its own glorious piece of music, it comes with an album to match. Few neo-funk bands have put together anything as front-to-back solid as this: nearly every track shimmers on its own. "The Contender," which features a good-natured duel between horns and woodwinds, both the brass and the groove under it derived as much from jazz as R&B but with the balance tipped definitively in favor of the latter. "Home Again!" has the warmth of instrumental late-'60s hits such as Hugh Masakela's "Grazing in the Grass." And they end it with a cover of Bill Conti's "Going the Distance," from the Rocky soundtrack — a touch corny, sure, but also an evenly tempered triumphant note to finish on. They deserve it.