Artist:   Reuben Wilson and the Cost of Living
Song:   "Got To Get Your Own"
Album: Got To Get Your Own
Label:   Dusty Groove
Year:    1975

Full length overcoat with fur collar? Not a problem. Two-toned Rolls Royce ready to go? Right here. Bell bottoms straight out of the Navy, with cuffs wide enough to sweep the sidewalk? Try them on now. Chivas Regal by the case? Leave it on the bar. Funky Hammond organist with some Superduper Fly sax players. That would be Reuben Wilson you’re talking about, and he’s hot as the derringer his woman has in her disco purse. The mid-70s were a very strange time indeed for jazz. A lot of the musicians could smell the coming dance crowd looking for inspiration, and were more than happy to throw some hot grooves their way. Wilson was a second generation organ great, coming up after Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff and that bopping bunch. He had a lowdown sound, glued hard to the beat more than traveling afar on extended solos, and made a whole series of albums for Blue Note and Groove Merchant that kept a lot of heads bobbing. But in 1975 he signed on with Chess Records for the Got To Get Your Own album, grabbing Bernard “Pretty” Purdie on drums with Houston Person and Alfred “Pee Wee” Ellis on saxophones. The title song outshafts Shaft, and you can almost see the dancers on “Soul Train” going down the line in a variety of contorted gyrations. At a little over six minutes long, it also provides a social lesson in self-determination:  “Got to get your own ‘cause they sure ain’t gonna give you none.” It’s hard to argue with music meant to empower its audience, and Lord knows the ‘70s weren’t a pretty financial picture right about the halfway mark. Reuben Wilson had a plan, a studio full of steaming players and visions of world domination. Unfortunately, the label shut down right after the album was released and all signs of it quickly disappeared. The good news is Dusty Groove has come to the rescue with this reissue and Reuben Wilson rides high again.