Roy Ayers

Roy Ayers - vibraphone, composer, bandleader, recording artist

Roy Ayers was during the 1960s one of the most prominent and leading jazz vibraphone players in America. During the 1970s and 80s he came to change his focus and became one of the leading figures in R&B and jazz/funk. The 1990s has once again brought him into a new direction and he is now regarded being one of the greatest innovators of the acid jazz movement. His music has often been described as being years ahead of it's time.

Ayers was born on September 10, 1940, in Los Angeles, California. Thanks to the influence of his mother, a piano teacher, and his father, a trombone player, Ayers was a musical child. His introduction to the vibraphone came at the age of six, when his parents took him to a Lionel Hampton concert. After the show, Hampton handed Ayers a pair of mallets, sealing the youngster's musical destiny with that simple gesture. It was not until he was 17 years old that Ayers finally got a chance to play the vibraphone, which he claims had been his favorite instrument all along.

By the early 1960s, Ayers was playing regularly with a number of local performers, including such fixtures on the Los Angeles jazz scene as Teddy Edwards, Chico Hamilton, and Jack Wilson. This experience soon gave Ayers the necessary confidence to become a band leader. His first opportunity to record in that capacity came in 1963, on a project called “West Coast Vibes,” released by United Artists. In 1966 Ayers, at the invitation of bassist Reggie Workman, sat in on a gig with Herbie Mann and his Quintet, at the Lighthouse, a prominent Los Angeles jazz club. Mann was so impressed with his work that he immediately made Ayers a permanent member of the group. Ayers toured and recorded with Mann for the next four years, a period that included the release of Mann's smash hit LP, “Memphis Underground” During this stint, Ayers also recorded three solo albums--all produced by Mann: “Daddy Bug,” “Virgo Red,” and “Stoned Soul Picnic.”

Ayers left the Mann group in 1970, and moved to New York, where he quickly formed his own band, which he dubbed Ubiquity. Ubiquity did not have a stable lineup like a conventional band. It consisted instead of a constantly- shifting roster of musicians at various stages in their careers. The band included established pros like bassist Ron Carter and saxophonist Sonny Fortune; newcomer vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater; and others. Ayers used Ubiquity to create a new genre that borrowed elements from jazz, funk, rock, soul, salsa, and whatever else he heard and liked, and then synthesized them into an appealing melange.

The next dozen years represented an incredibly prolific period for Ayers and the various versions of Ubiquity. During that span, the group recorded no less than 20 albums for Polydor. Ayers spent the first half of the seventies building an audience for his new musical mixture. His approach was to incorporate anything that he thought sounded good. "I have a totally open mind about music," he was quoted as saying in the liner notes to the 1995 compilation Evolution: The Polydor Anthology. "I love the music I listen to-- pop, jazz, blues and soul--and I'm not closed to them. My music is a combination of styles fused into one. I like to cover the total perspective," he continued. He also experimented quite a bit with his own instrument, becoming one of the first vibes players to alter the instrument's sound with fuzz boxes, wah-wah pedals, and other effects more commonly associated with the electric guitar. At times, the vibes were a featured solo instrument, with Ayers taking off on extended flights of mallet fancy. Just as often, however, his vibes lurked in the background, shimmering behind riffing keyboards, guitars, and horns, all driven by a thumping rhythm section.

The emergence of disco in the second half of the 1970s brought Ayers and Ubiquity into the limelight. The hit song "Everybody Loves the Sunshine," from the 1976 album of the same title, became a dance floor sensation, and although it was never released as a single it probably remains the tune most associated with Ayers. In 1977, the song "Running Away" broke into the R&B top twenty, and is generally regarded as a dance club classic. The following year, Ubiquity recorded "The Freaky Deaky," which became popular enough to inspire a dance step of the same name. These and other Ubiquity hits of the genre Ayers referred to as "disco jazz" became dance floor anthems, and have remained popular over the two decades that followed.

In 1979 Ayers and Ubiquity embarked on a nine-city tour of Nigeria with African pop superstar Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. The tour affected Ayers profoundly, and upon his return his music began to take on a more politically conscious tone. His 1981 album “Africa, Center of the World,” was a direct result of his experiences on that continent. “Feeling Good,” released in 1982, was Ayers's last album for Polydor. That year he started his own label, Uno Melodic, primarily to release projects that he produced for other artists. Ayers signed with Columbia Records in 1984, and over the next few years he scored a handful of minor R&B hits on that label, including "In the Dark" in 1984, "Slip 'n Slide" in 1985, and "Hot" in 1986.

During the 90s, Ayers split his time between leading his own band, performing live, composing and producing for other artists. Ayers also, since the end of the 1980s, had a successful collaboration with the highly regarded jazz club Ronnie Scott's in Soho, London, UK. Together with Ubiquity, Ayers performed on several occasions as the official house band and also released several live recordings from the club.

In Britain, Ayers was seen as one of the founding fathers of acid jazz, perhaps its single most important progenitor. Hip- hop, acid jazz, and R&B artists on both sides of the Atlantic began to use samples from Ayers's hits of the 1970s in their work. Dance club DJs could not play enough Roy Ayers to suit the tastes the people on the floor. Suddenly Ayers was back in the limelight. By 1995 demand for Ayers's sound had grown large enough to warrant his first major label recording project in years, “Naste,” released on RCA. Simultaneously, Polydor attempted to cash in on his renewed fame by releasing “Evolution: The Polydor Anthology,” a two-disc compilation of Ayers's work on that label. On top of all this, Ayers also did a guest stunt on the successful salsa/soul album “Nu Yorican Soul.”

As acid jazz continues to gain a loyal following in the United States, Roy Ayers, as its leading icon, has become a pop culture hero once again. Ayers spent much of his career trying to stay at the top by seeking out and capturing the musical mood of the times. Now, Ayers has seen that situation reverse itself. The musical mood of the times has chosen him and made him its king. "I'm honored that they picked my music...." he was quoted as saying, “I’m ubiquitous again."
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Roy Ayers: A Retrospective

by Jason Elias
November 20, 2023

Vibraphonist, singer and producer Roy Ayers is a master of many musical styles and genres, from acid-jazz, jazz-funk to romantic ballads and dance tracks. While many of his contemporaries seemed to fail when they tried different sounds, Ayers always made sure a certain of musicality and identity was apparent in all of his work. Ayers's first album was 1963's West Coast Vibes and it was issued on United Artists Records. Ayers spent the next few years as a ...

470

Live Review

Roy Ayers at Yoshi's

by Walter Atkins
December 12, 2015

Roy Ayers is Everywhere Yoshi's Oakland Oakland California November 27, 2015 The venerable vibraphonist Roy Ayers and his seasoned band performed during a sold out weekend at the East Bay's popular Yoshi's in Oakland's Jack London Square. The exuberant 75-year-old composer /musician opened the exciting second show with “Sweet Tears." Ayers surprised the full house by taking his band into his arrangement of Rick James' funky number one RB hit “Give It To Me Baby" ...

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Album Review

Roy Ayers: West Coast Vibes

Read "West Coast Vibes" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
May 27, 2006

Roy Ayers had a career before he had hit records, and this reissue proves the vibraphonist was both well-versed and eloquent within the realm of post-bop jazz. In the company largely of a cast including pianist Jack Wilson and Curtis Amy on tenor and soprano saxophones, Ayers works his way through the kind of programme of standards and originals that was pretty much the order of the day back in the early 1960s. This does not, however, alter the fact ...

283

Album Review

Roy Ayers: Stoned Soul Picnic

by Douglas Payne
December 1, 1999

Stoned Soul Picnic is vibraphonist Roy Ayers' third and probably best solo album, made in 1968 while he was still a part of Herbie Mann's group. Ayers stands clearly in the shadow of Bobby Hutcherson on this primarily modally-oriented date, sounding nothing like the groove-meister he would become known as later in the 1970s.Producer Mann, always an underrated talent scout, assembles an especially exceptional septet for Ayers here with Gary Bartz on alto sax, arranger Charles Tolliver on ...

Video / DVD

Roy Ayers + Maceo Parker

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 30, 2020

Roy Ayers and Maceo Parker are two of my favorite jazz-soul and jazz-funk artists. Both recently released new albums. And both musicians started out as jazz players but invented new R&B forms during their careers—Ayers as a neo-soul vibraphonist and Parker as a bump-and-funk alto saxophonist. Their new albums are moody, funky and chill. Ayers is probably best known for his 1976 album Everybody Loves the Sunshine. Parker emerged in the 1960s as a saxophonist for James Brown and then ...
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Video / DVD

Roy Ayers: Jazz-Soul Godfather

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
May 7, 2018

By the late 1960s and very early '70s, a growing number of young jazz musicians saw the writing on the wall. Rock was attracting massive media attention, ever-larger crowds of young listeners, and larger paydays. To compete, many jazz artists gave up their acoustic instruments for electronic counterparts and began playing a new form of jazz that was heavily influenced by hard rock and psychedelic mysticism. But not all jazz musicians determined to remain relevant rushed to embrace rock. Some ...
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Festival

2015 Art of Cool Jazz Festival

Source: Michael Ricci
April 20, 2015

By K. Shackelford The 2015 Art of Cool Jazz Festival is a journey into the immense vastness of jazz music with a roster of world class musicians. Operating in only its second year, the three day jazz dreamland, offers a superb mix of old and new artists that illuminate the ways that jazz penetrates many forms of American music. The festival will occur in Durham, North Carolina on April 24-26, 2015. The line-up at AOCFEST is a hefty ...
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Performance / Tour

Roy Ayers at The Addition

Source: Michael Ricci
January 21, 2015

By Walter Atkins The Addition, formally known as Yoshi's San Francisco, welcomed the celebrated and ageless acid jazz/funk vibraphonist Roy Ayers for a weekend stand on November 21, 2014. The new name was inspired by the club's location between Lower Fillmore and the Western Addition. The show kicked off the soft opening of the City's latest music venue. According to his official website, the respected and heavily sampled vibraphonist/vocalist is considered the “The Godfather of Neo Soul." Vocalist ...
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Performance / Tour

Jammin’ at the Gem Concert Series Showcases Vibraphonist Roy Ayers with Spoken Word and Jazz Poetry Innovators

Source: Artists Recording Collective + the ARC Record Label
February 3, 2012

The second installment in the American Jazz Museum's noted 2011/2012 “Jammin' at the Gem" concert series season headlines another musical master of world renown, the vibraphonist/composer, Roy Ayers. Mr. Ayers will be joined by two pioneers of jazz poetry and spoken word, Jessica Care Moore and Louis Reyes Rivera. Of poets, Moore and Reyes Rivera, AJM Poet-In-Residence, Glenn North states, “Jessica Care Moore was the first poet who appeared on “Showtime at the Apollo" to win 5 times in a ...
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Event

Jazz Poetry Pioneers at Jammin' at the Gem in February

Source: Artists Recording Collective + the ARC Record Label
January 6, 2012

The next concert in the Jammin' at the Gem series features Valentine and Black History Month and a Salute to Jazz Poetry. The Jazz Poetry Jams program at the American Jazz Museum is in its 9th year. The combining of jazz music performance and jazz poetry on the Gem Theater stage in concert is scheduled for Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 8:00 pm with the legendary Roy Ayers performing with jazz poetry pioneers: Louis Reyes Rivera and Jessica Care Moore. ...
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Recording

Roy Ayers: Soul Vibes

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
November 14, 2011

Back in the early 1970s, Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Tony Williams and John McLaughlin leveraged Miles Davis' new electric approach to jazz and created different streams of jazz-rock fusion. At the same time, vibraphonist Roy Ayers went off in a separate direction—pioneering electronic jazz-funk, which Herbie Hancock would build on with Headhunters in 1973. This Thursday, Nov. 17, Ayers will make a rare performance appearance in Los Angeles at the Exchange LA club, from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. Go ...
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Music Industry

Roy Ayers in Ew! | Roy Ayers | News

Source: All About Jazz
November 6, 2008

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Performance / Tour

The Godfather of Neo-Soul, Roy Ayers Takes over at the World Famous Blue Note Jazz Club, NYC.

Source: All About Jazz
October 7, 2008

On October 29th and 30th, Roy Ayers will be making his debut at New York City’s legendary Blue Note Jazz Club on West 3rd Street in the prominent East Village. At 8:00 PM and 10:30 PM on two consecutive evenings, the renowned icon will appear on stage performing a plethora of his chart topping hits and eternally revived tunes.

As one of the greatest living vibraphonists and vocalists, Roy Ayers is among the best-known, most-loved and respected Jazz and R&B ...
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Recording