Funky Donkey

St. Louis alto saxophonist Luther Thomas always sought out the no man’s land between genre and its conventions. He was a played on New York’s early ’80s fusion of punk and funk with Defunkt, but was also a crucial cog in the St. Louis’s Black Artist’s Guild, a loose assemblage of up-and-coming jazz players indebted to the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and their example. BAG and the likes of Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, Charles ‘Bobo’ Shaw, and the Bowie brothers all hoped to break out of the confines of the form, seeking a place where free jazz, funk, rock, and rhythm & blues might meet. Funky Donkey, credited to Luther Thomas Human Arts Ensemble, is where the onslaught of free jazz meets the relentless drive of funk. Recorded live in a St. Louis church, it’s a ferocious slab of shrieking, snaking horn lines and upstroke guitar work, powered by a delirious backbeat. Each raucous, celebratory 18-minute blow out will leave you breathless.