Defunkt | |
|---|---|
 Defunkt in 1981 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | New York City, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Members | Joseph Bowie Kim Clarke Ronnie Drayton Bill Bickford John Mulkerin Kenny Martin |
| Past members | See below |
| Website | josephbowie |
Defunkt is an American musical group founded by the trombonist and singer Joseph Bowie in 1978 in New York City.[1] Their music touches on elements of punk rock, funk, and jazz.[2]
Joseph Bowie is the brother of big band musician Byron Bowie and Art Ensemble of Chicago co-founder Lester Bowie. Joseph, who had previously worked as a sideman for various 1970s jazz musicians,[3] founded Defunkt in 1978 with members of a band that had backed James Chance.[4] The new group's original focus was on danceable jazz music.[2] Joseph Bowie remains the only consistent member of the group over its history; he has been noted for displaying the influence of far-ranging musicians like Ornette Coleman, James Brown, and Joe Strummer.[3]
The first incarnation of the group was active in New York City's "No Wave" radical underground music scene,[2][3] which also included fusion-oriented groups like Material and Sonic Youth.[5] Joseph's saxophonist brother Bryon,[6] bassist Melvin Gibbs[7] and future Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid[5] were early contributors. The group's debut self-titled album was released in 1980 and combined the band's original jazz focus with soul, funk, rock, and blues.[8] That album was particularly popular in Eastern Europe and Japan.[3] Their second album Thermonuclear Sweat followed in 1982.[9]
Bowie disbanded the group in 1983 due to a lack of mainstream success, and retired to the island of St. Croix for a few years.[3] He returned to New York in 1986 and assembled a new Defunkt lineup, with the addition of multiple singers and a large horn section to pursue a new focus on combining 1930s big band and swing music with 1970s funk.[2] This incarnation of the group, with many lineup changes under Bowie's leadership, has released several additional studio albums, starting with In America in 1988.[10] Their latest album, Mastervolt, was released in 2015.[3]
AllMusic described the Defunkt's music as "some of the most adventurous sounds of the last quarter of the 20th century."[2] Trouser Press has praised the group's later works for "a dynamic rock-funk-jazz concoction of popping bass, neck-melting guitar [...] and Bowie's inventive trombone figures and up-close-and-personable vocals."[4]
