Defunkt - Defunkt

1980 release.  "Virtuosity in search of a concept"....think of a merging of  punk, jazz and dance music.  This is the group that jump started the underground New York funk music scene (Talking Heads, etc.). Influential without a doubt.  Led by trumpet player Joseph Bowie -- the son of a St. Louis-based music teacher, the brother of big band arranger Byron Bowie, and late trumpet player of the Art Ensemble of Chicago's Lester Bowie. Album has the original version of "Strangling Me With Your Love" and a version of Chic's "In the Good Times".  Their second album Thermo Nuclear Sweat featured Vernon Reid on guitar. 

This is comment from a cat named Rickey Vincent that lays it out for me:

"If you listen to that early 80's Miles Davis, where he tries to get into some spastic funk/jazz with a nasty edge, and basically leaves you unsatisfied...DEFUNKT gets you all the way there...What Miles was trying to do, Defunkt was doing...What Kelvynator was trying to do, Defunkt had it down...I have an Ornette Coleman album from around 1980, with a stanky electric bass guitarist underneath Ornette's horn...seriously trippy funk...for my money, even Ornette was working toward what Defunkt had mastered..."

Personnel: Backing Vocals - Clarice Taylor, Janos Gat (tracks: A4) , Michael Riesman, Backing Vocals, Percussion [Additional] - Charles Bobo Shaw, Bass - Melvin Gibbs, Drums - Ronnie Burrage, Flute, Saxophone - Byron Bowie, Guitar - Kelvyn Bell , Martin Aubert, Keyboards - Martin Fischerm Trombone, Vocals - Joseph Bowie, Trumpet - Ted Daniel.

Tracklist
Make Them Dance
Strangling Me With Your Love
In The Good Times
Blues
Defunkt
Thermonuclear Sweat
Melvin's Tune
We All Dance Together

Hard rock, jazz...what is this?   Took skills to play this that's all I'm sayin.  Classic with the trippy flute battling with a guitar.
 
Melvin's Tune