Ramon Morris - Sweet Sister Funk

Sweet Sister Funk is the only album Ramon Morris ever recorded as a frontman, and it quietly fueled hip-hop producers for three decades.

Morris spent his career as the saxophonist others wanted in the room, getting his start with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers before working alongside Reuben Wilson, Shirley Scott, Woody Shaw and the Rashied Ali Quintet. In 1973 he finally stepped forward, for Sonny Lester's Groove Merchant label, with Lester producing, and brought a band worth the wait: Cecil Bridgewater on trumpet, Mickey Roker on drums, Albert Dailey on electric piano. Seven tracks, and then he never led a session again.

First Come, First Serve opens with a percussion and bass intro so heavy it was meant for a sampler, before Morris and Bridgewater begin exchanging phrases like a conversation they've had a hundred times. Their cover of The Stylistics' People Make the World Go Round is the sublime centerpiece of the album, Don't Ask Me carries a swinging brass intro later covered in full for a Big Pun single, and Wijinia drifts into the spiritual jazz territory that Strata East and Black Jazz were charting at the time.

DJ Premier, The Alchemist and DJ Shadow all found something there. Now the entire album is back where it started.