Even if you happen to’ve nev­er learn Frank Her­bert’s Dune, you might properly have encoun­tered its adap­ta­tions to a vari­ety of oth­er media: com­ic books, video video games, board video games, tele­vi­sion sequence, and naturally movies, David Lynch’s 1984 ver­sion and Denis Vil­leneu­ve’s two-parter ear­li­er this decade. However earlier than any of these got here Dune, the jazz-funk album by key­boardist and band­leader David Matthews. Launched in 1977 on the pop­u­lar jazz label CTI Information, it devotes its whole first aspect to a 20-minute suite osten­si­bly impressed by Her­bert’s nov­el, con­sist­ing of the items “Arrakis,” “Sand­worms,” “Music of the Bene Gesser­it,” and “Muad’dib.”

You’ll discover that the typog­ra­phy on the cov­er of Matthews’ Dune appears terrible­ly rem­i­nis­cent of Star Wars, a movie that had come out the exact same 12 months. It’s not actual­ly false adver­tis­ing, because the album clos­es with ver­sions of each Star Wars’ major theme and Princess Leia’s theme, sup­ple­ment­ed by the theme from Dou­glas Trum­bul­l’s Silent Run­ning and even David Bowie’s “House Odd­i­ty.” Accord­ing to jazz his­to­ri­an Doug Payne, the con­cept was the concept of CTI founder Creed Tay­lor.

Tay­lor had orig­i­nal­ly employed Matthews as CTI’s chief arranger, the lat­ter’s years of expe­ri­ence as James Brown’s musi­cal direc­tor hav­ing promised the poten­tial to imbue the label’s releas­es with dis­co enchantment. In addi­tion to Matthews on the important thing­boards, Dune additionally fea­tures heavy-hit­ting ses­sion play­ers from the late-sev­en­ties jazz world like Randy Breck­er, Steve Gadd, Grover Wash­ing­ton, Jr., Hiram Bul­lock, and David San­born. Followers of obscu­ran­tist hip-hop may additionally rec­og­nize Matthews’ “House Odd­i­ty” cov­er as a sam­ple supply for MF DOOM’s “Rapp Snitch Knish­es.”

Very similar to Bob James, his fel­low mas­ter­thoughts of dis­co-inflect­ed jazz, Matthews has cre­at­ed a physique of labor that lives on a hip-hop gold­mine: his oth­er sam­plers embrace Technique Man, Pink­man, and The Noto­ri­ous B.I.G. Nevertheless it was in Japan that he discovered his most enthu­si­as­tic lis­ten­er­ship. After leav­ing CTI in 1978, Payne writes, “Matthews went onto report a slew of information for many­ly Japan­ese labels beneath a vari­ety of guis­es includ­ing Japan’s num­ber one promote­ing jazz group, the Man­hat­tan Jazz Quin­tet.” Should you vis­it Japan, you might properly hear Matthews’ music play­ing in an area jazz bar.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Hans Zim­mer Cre­at­ed the Oth­er­world­ly Sound­track for Dune

Hear Bri­an Eno’s Con­tri­bu­tion to the Sound­track of David Lynch’s Dune (1984)

The 14-Hour Epic Film, Dune, that Ale­jan­dro Jodor­owsky, Pink Floyd, Sal­vador Dalí, Moe­bius, Orson Welles & Mick Jag­ger Nev­er Made

Space Jazz, a Son­ic Sci-Fi Opera by L. Ron Hub­bard, Fea­tur­ing Chick Corea (1983)

Great Mix­tapes of 1970s Japan­ese Jazz: 4 Hours of Funky, Groovy, Fusion‑y Music

Primarily based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His tasks embrace the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the e-book The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll via Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social internet­work for­mer­ly referred to as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.