Dangerous Thinking

I’m just listening to a track called Orbitron Attack, from Axiom Funk’s Funkronomicon. Never having been much of a Parliament/Funkadelic aficionado, I’d never heard of Eddie Hazell, their wild guitarist.

Suddenly, I know who Prince and Vernon Reid have been listening to. Absolutely amazing stuff – sustained funk metal invention of boggling proportions.

And Hazell died not long after recording the album in 1995, after a life partaking of (ahem) recreational substances.

What is it that links great musicians with hard drugs? Charlie Parker, Art Pepper, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and many others have all had a significant brush with them – and that’s just the jazz world.