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Phil Ranelin

Jazz

Los Angeles

About

Phil Ranelin was born and began his career in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he sat in with many notable musicians at jazz clubs throughout the city. When he was nineteen he met guitar great Wes Montgomery at a club called the Hub Bub and he played sixteen straight weeks with Montgomery on the Saturday matinee along with Paul Parker and Melvin Rhyne. In the 60's he sat in whenever Eddie Harris or Grant Green came through town. In 1964, Ranelin was asked by his childhood friend and jazz great Freddie Hubbard to move to New York to join and record with his group. It was in New York in 1965 where he met Thelonious Monk, Kenny Dorham, Joe Henderson, and other inspiring players. Although Ranelin was flattered by Hubbard's offer to work with him in New York, after a short stay, he returned to Indianapolis where he was raising a family. In 1968, with local work scarce, he moved to Detroit where he would still be close to his family and would find more musical opportunities.

Once in Detroit, Ranelin began to play in several groups and had the opportunity to play with greats like Marcus Belgrave, Pharaoh Sanders., and one especially memorable night with Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Ranelin never regretted his move ''because Detroit was where Tribe was born,'' he says. In 1972, while Ranelin was teaching musically advanced inner city children, he met Wendell Harrison. Together they founded ''Tribe'', an artists' collective of jazz musicians who ventured into the business and recording aspects of music in order to maintain more artistic control. Tribe was Detroit's counterpart to other self-determined jazz collectives such as Collective Black Artists of New York City, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians of Chicago, and U.G.M.A.A. of Los Angeles. Besides releasing records, Tribe also published their own magazine which featured social and political commentary as well as music reviews and interviews. It was another method to spread the word. Tribe became a cultural phenomenon. It was a source of Black Pride and provided an opportunity for many in Detroit who would have otherwise been unemployed. It was a vehicle for musicians, artists, writers, and thinkers to rediscover their childhood dreams. ''The word Tribe possessed near magic proportion when uttered in the African American community,'' says Ranelin.

As a session player for Motown Records, Ranelin worked alongside Motown studio legends James Jamerson and Pistol Allen, playing on albums for Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, The Four Tops, and The Temptations. He also played live in the Motown travelling band, the Swinging Dashiki's. His Motown work enabled him to invest in his own music, which eventually led to Ranelin producing his own records. ''It wasn't easy, I took my whole life's savings out of the bank in order to do 'Vibes From The Tribe','' he says. But that's the way Phil Ranelin is, he does things his way. In the 70's not many people were taking chances starting independent labels and pressing their own albums. Ranelin was preaching family and unity and found ways to tie his ideas into his compositions and albums.

In 2000, Hefty Records owner, John Hughes contacted Phil Ranelin to play on a film score that he was composing. It was during this session that Ranelin mentioned that he had the complete masters to his Tribe recordings and the project began to fall into place. Both albums were mixed from the original session tapes by engineer and Tortoise/The Sea & Cake member John McEntire. The recordings were fully restored and remixed true to the original masters. This is the first time that they have been reissued in their entirety. Both albums included previously unreleased bonus tracks and extended versions of the original recordings. Hughes and Ranelin decided to release remixes by contemporary artists in hopes of spreading the original power of these recordings to a new generation of listeners.

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