Players association
Encyclopedia
Players Association were a New York
based, Vanguard Records
studio
group
, put together by drummer
/ arranger
Chris Hills and Danny Weiss in 1977.
Players Association recordings
brought in session musician
s such as Larry Coryell
, Joe Farrell
, David Sanborn
, James Mtume
, Mike Mandel and others. Whilst writing
some of their own song
s, the group mainly focused on covers
of soul
, funk
and disco
tunes. They became more disco-funk with jazz
overtones, although the Association occasionally detoured into instrumental
jazz-pop and quiet storm
music
. Their two biggest hits
were "Disco Inferno
", a cover of The Trammps
tune, and their own composition, "Turn The Music Up!"
"Disco Inferno" was an underground club
hit in the US
and the UK
, most notable for the piercing solos
from Michael and Randy Brecker
. They proved infinitely more popular in the UK
, where they scored three chart singles (including the Top Ten hit "Turn The Music Up") and one chart album, which also prompted a UK tour, although after the release of five album
s between 1977 and 1981, the association ended.
The Players Association (originally released on CD
in the UK as VSD 79384) and Turn the Music Up (originally released in the UK on CD as VSD 79421), were issued on one CD in 1998, by the UK based Ace Records on catalogue number CDSEWD117. Born to Dance is also available on CD on catalogue number VMD 79398
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
based, Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
group
Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...
, put together by drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
/ arranger
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
Chris Hills and Danny Weiss in 1977.
Players Association recordings
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
brought in session musician
Session musician
Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...
s such as Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell is an American jazz fusion guitarist.-Biography:Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from Richland High School, in Richland, Washington, where he played in local bands The Jailers, The Rumblers, The Royals, and The Flames. He also played with The Checkers from nearby...
, Joe Farrell
Joe Farrell
Joseph Carl Firrantello , known as Joe Farrell, was an American jazz saxophonist and flutist. He is best known for a series of albums under his own name on the CTI record label and for playing in the initial incarnation of Chick Corea's Return to Forever.-Biography:Farrell was born in Chicago...
, David Sanborn
David Sanborn
David Sanborn is an American alto saxophonist. Though Sanborn has worked in many genres, his solo recordings typically blend jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He released his first solo album Taking Off in 1975, but has been playing the saxophone since before he was in high school...
, James Mtume
James Mtume
James Mtume is a jazz and R&B musician and a radio personality. Mtume's group is perhaps best known for their 1983 R&B hit song "Juicy Fruit". The song was sampled by The Notorious B.I.G. in his song "Juicy"...
, Mike Mandel and others. Whilst writing
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
some of their own song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
s, the group mainly focused on covers
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
and disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
tunes. They became more disco-funk with jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
overtones, although the Association occasionally detoured into instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
jazz-pop and quiet storm
Quiet storm
Quiet storm is a late-night radio format, featuring soulful slow jams, pioneered in the mid-1970s by then-station-intern Melvin Lindsey at WHUR-FM, in Washington, D.C. Smokey Robinson's like-titled hit single, released in 1975 as the title track to his third solo album, lent its name to the format...
music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
. Their two biggest hits
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
were "Disco Inferno
Disco Inferno (The Trammps song)
-Tina Turner version:Tina Turner covered the song in 1993 for the What's Love Got to Do with It soundtrack and it charted at number twelve in the UK Singles Chart, 4 places higher than The Trammps' version...
", a cover of The Trammps
The Trammps
The Trammps were an American disco band, who were based in Philadelphia and were one of the first disco bands. The band's first major success was with their 1972 cover version of "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart". The first disco track they released was "Love Epidemic" in 1973...
tune, and their own composition, "Turn The Music Up!"
"Disco Inferno" was an underground club
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
hit in the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, most notable for the piercing solos
Solo (music)
In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...
from Michael and Randy Brecker
Randy Brecker
Randal "Randy" Brecker is an American trumpeter and flugelhornist. He is a highly sought after performer in the genres of jazz, rock, and R&B, and has performed or recorded with Stanley Turrentine, Billy Cobham, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Sandip Burman, Charles Mingus, Blood, Sweat & Tears,...
. They proved infinitely more popular in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, where they scored three chart singles (including the Top Ten hit "Turn The Music Up") and one chart album, which also prompted a UK tour, although after the release of five album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
s between 1977 and 1981, the association ended.
Albums
- The Players Association - 1977 (U.S. Jazz #39; (U.S. Black AlbumsTop R&B/Hip-Hop AlbumsTop R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...
#30) - Born to Dance - 1977 (U.S. Black Albums #57)
- Turn The Music Up - 1978 (U.K. #54)
- We Got the Groove - 1980
- Let Your Body Go - 1981
The Players Association (originally released on CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
in the UK as VSD 79384) and Turn the Music Up (originally released in the UK on CD as VSD 79421), were issued on one CD in 1998, by the UK based Ace Records on catalogue number CDSEWD117. Born to Dance is also available on CD on catalogue number VMD 79398
Singles
- "Love HangoverLove Hangover"Love Hangover" was the fourth number one single for Motown singer Diana Ross. It was released in March 1976, and rose to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Soul Singles and Hot Dance Club Play charts simultaneously....
"/"Let's Groove"/"I Like It" - 1977 (U.S. DanceHot Dance Club PlayThe Hot Dance Club Songs chart is a weekly national survey of the songs that are most popular in U.S. dance clubs...
#24) - "Disco InfernoDisco Inferno (The Trammps song)-Tina Turner version:Tina Turner covered the song in 1993 for the What's Love Got to Do with It soundtrack and it charted at number twelve in the UK Singles Chart, 4 places higher than The Trammps' version...
" - 1979 - "Turn The Music Up!" - 1979 (UKUK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
#8; U.S. Dance #59) - "Ride the Groove" - 1979 (UK #42)
- "We Got the Groove" - 1980 (UK #61)
- "The Get-Down Mellow Sound" - 1980 (U.S. Black SinglesHot R&B/Hip-Hop SongsHot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul,...
#59)