Archive Afterthought: The sessions Marvin Gaye did after What's Going On

On the electrifying Funky Nation: The Detroit Instrumentals

In January, Motown Records made the usual marketing noises to mark the 50th anniversary of “What’s Going On,” the single that introduced Marvin Gaye’s enduring, ever-relevant album of the same name. There were think pieces (of course!) and tributes by current artists, and (also of course) a milestone edition featuring demos and alternate mixes.

Motown did not stop there: In somewhat quieter fashion, it also released Gaye’s subsequent project, a set of live-in-studio instrumental jams he organized in the summer of 1971, after refusing to do a promotional tour for What’s Going On.

To date, Funky Nation: The Detroit Instrumentals has barely made a blip – a cursory search turned up only a handful of reviews, with most of the interest coming from the UK. A few tracks have been released before, on Gaye anthologies and boxed sets, but still, this collection deserves much more promotion-department grease. It is essential listening for Gaye completists, of course, just on the basis of his playful introduction and the whimsical scatting he does on a deep track later. But it’s also essential for anyone seeking insight about the rhythm section concept that prevailed at Detroit-era Motown, and anyone who wants to dive into the granular fine points of rhythm guitar as practiced by two masters working together, and anyone who ever loved those intense long-form jams on James Brown instrumental records. And on and on.

This archive project shines light on one of the underappreciated aspects of Motown’s success. The label did not just rely on its rightly revered team of all-star musicians, like bassist James Jamerson, who gave What’s Going On that distinctive spark; it also benefitted from a deep bench of musicians who shared a basic understanding of how to make music feel good.

This legacy of the backbeat, heard on the early Supremes singles and the later Temptations and so much in between, wasn’t taught in a classroom. It was an unspoken type of institutional memory, handed down from the first-call players to the youngsters. It spread from session to session, under pressurized conditions and in late-night open-ended forays and on countless tours. It’s an approach to music that depends on equal measures of looseness and restraint, as well as the instincts to know what the foundational rhythm needs, measure by measure, as it unfolds. The young musicians of Detroit learned these things by listening; when they got in the room, they already knew how to find cohesion and agreement within the groove.

That’s audible on Funky Nation. Gaye might not have been able to get Jamerson for his jam project, but that was not exactly a problem: He tapped Michael Henderson, then 20 years old and just beginning a stint with Miles Davis. Henderson clearly understood the spirit of the session: He establishes repeatable rhythmic patterns that anchor skeletal tunes like “Help The People,” and aligns with drummer Hamilton Bohannan’s crisp, exceedingly spare rhythm on “Country Stud” and others. Sure Henderson was young, but he had absorbed Jamerson’s sly tactics: His perfectly timed ad-libbed asides are one delight, among many, on the opening “Checking Out (Double Clutch).”

Throughout these short (were they edited?) explorations, it’s possible to sense some of the atmosphere in the room, and feel the concentration of the players as they lock into what feels like an effortless pulse. Bohannan, an underappreciated master who led Motown touring bands before having disco success in the late ‘70s, starts with invitingly spacious drum patterns, the kind that you’d imagine could simmer for hours. These inspire a kind of running banter between guitarists Wah Wah Watson, Leroy Emmanuel and a 17-year-old Ray Parker Jr. (whose later claims to fame include the Ghostbusters theme song). Trading lead and rhythm roles constantly, the three interact to create a marvelous guitar tapestry of laid-back pitch-bending blues, dirty funk squabbling, and, on a tune called “Daybreak,” a deliciously crunchy deconstruction of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” riff.

Can’t recommend this one enough. It works for foreground listening and prepping dinner and as a percolating background for studying — another world culture classic that’s being treated like an archive afterthought.

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