He's Coming

Though he'd already spent 10 years as a respected sideman and had even released a handful of albums under his own name, Roy Ayers’ career was reborn with 1971’s He’s Coming. It's the album that commences the most fruitful decade in the vibraphonist’s career, but more crucially, it's where Ayers’ musical personality coalesces. His earlier albums found him struggling to find his voice as a leader, but with the assimilation of funk and soul music into the general jazz consciousness, Ayers finally felt free to follow his musical desires. Where Miles Davis found in funk a weapon for rebellion, Ayers found a porthole to sublime moods. “Ain’t Got Time,” “I Don’t Know how to Love Him," and “Sweet Tears” are sonically rich and emotionally vulnerable. “He’s a Superstar” and “Fire Weaver” show Ayers borrowing the blaxploitation style, although there's nothing chintzy about his music. He's one of the few who can be nimble and velvety in the same measure. At the same time, Ayers’ own social consciousness blossomed with “We Live in Brooklyn, Baby,” a two-chord ghetto anthem that's an eternal rumble from beneath cracks in the sidewalk.