combined funk with elements of
punk and
art rock. Early acts who have retrospectively been described with the term include German
krautrock band
Can, American funk artists
Sly Stone and
George Clinton, and
jazz trumpeter
Miles Davis.
Herbie Hancock's 1973 album
Sextant was called an "uncompromising avant-funk masterpiece" by
Paste. Jazz saxophonist
Ornette Coleman led the avant-funk band
Prime Time in the 1970s and 1980s. Guitarist
James "Blood" Ulmer, who performed with Coleman in the 1970s, was described by
The New Yorker as "one of avant-funk's masters." According to Reynolds, a pioneering wave of avant-funk artists came in the late 1970s, when
post-punk artists (including
A Certain Ratio,
the Pop Group,
Gang of Four,
Bush Tetras,
Defunkt,
Public Image Ltd,
Liquid Liquid, and
James Chance, as well as
Arthur Russell,
Cabaret Voltaire,
Talking Heads,
DAF, and
23 Skidoo) embraced black dance music styles such as funk and
disco. Reynolds noted these artists' preoccupations with issues such as
alienation,
repression and the
technocracy of Western
modernity. The artists of the late 1970s New York
no wave scene, including James Chance, explored avant-funk influenced by Ornette Coleman. The 1981 album
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by
Brian Eno and
David Byrne was described as a masterpiece of avant-funk by
Paste. The New York label
ZE Records released the influential compilation
Mutant Disco: A Subtle Discolation of the Norm in 1981, coining a new label for this style of hybridized dance music blending punk and disco. Later groups such as
Skinny Puppy,
Chakk, and
400 Blows represented later waves of the style. By the mid-1980s, avant-funk had dissipated as white
alternative groups turned away from the dancefloor. ==See also==