Vibraphonist and soul jazz pioneer Roy Ayers died on Tuesday at age 84. His stunning 1976 anthem "Everybody Loves the Sunshine" has been sampled hundreds of times by artists from Tupac Shakur to Mary J. Blige and Snoop Dogg. Watch a live version below from Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Basement Sessions.
"The true beauty of music is that it connects people," Ayers once said. "It carries a message, and we, the musicians, are the messengers."
From NPR:
Like a scene out of a movie, a 5-year-old Ayers boogie'd so hard at a Lionel Hampton concert that the vibraphonist handed Ayers his first pair of mallets.
"At the time, my mother and father told me he laid some spiritual vibes on me," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2011.
While he cut his teeth on the 1960s hard-bop scene of LA, Ayers came into his signature sound with 1970's Ubiquity, an album title that he'd soon take as the name of his band for the remaining decade. With Roy Ayers Ubiquity, the group soundtracked streetwise music by mixing funk grooves, soulful horns and vocals with jazz improvisation. By jumping off Miles Davis' electric period and leaning into a sun-kissed funk, they met a music movement already in motion, most notably on albums like 1971's He's Coming and 1973's Red, Black & Green, not to mention Ayers' score for Coffy, the blaxploitation flick featuring Pam Grier.
But it's the 1976 release of Everybody Loves the Sunshine that sent a ripple throughout funk space…
"It was so spontaneous. It felt wonderful," Ayers told The Guardian in 2017 of the song's creation.
Previously:
• The delicious sounds of Roy Ayers
