KOOL & THE GANG Live At P.J.'s (Original Master Recording limited edition 8-track LP mastered at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab by Krieg Wunderlich on the Gain 2 Ultra Analog System, specially plated and pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing on 180-gram High Definition Vinyl cut at 33RPM. Recorded on a late Saturday night in May 1971 at P.J.'s in Hollywood, California, Live at P.J.'s is one of the great lost documents of American funk - a freewheeling concert album that preceded the resurgent soul-jazz movement by decades and captured a band operating entirely on its own terms. The septet of Robert "Kool" Bell, Ronald Bell, George Brown, Claydes Smith, Robert Mickens, Dennis Thomas and Ricky West entered the club with seven new compositions, no concern for advance familiarity, and a philosophy built on crowd response and trial-by-fire song testing. The result is one long, magnetic, ever-shifting groove. The album-opening 'N.T.' contains one of the most famous drum breaks in recorded music, subsequently sampled by Public Enemy, N.W.A., Nas, Q-Tip and others. James Brown himself warned: "Don't play this in the car when you drive. The groove is so funky, you'll wreck." The final LP of Kool and the Gang's jazz-centric era, Live at P.J.'s moves through tropical-flavoured excursions, Latin-leaning covers - including Charles Lloyd's 'Sombrero Sam' - and an inspired reading of the pop evergreen 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling', before closing with the upbeat complexity of 'Dujii'. Mobile Fidelity's 180g 33RPM LP presents Live at P.J.'s in audiophile sound for the very first time, sourced from the original analogue master tapes via a 1/4" / 15 IPS analog master to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe transfer, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing and housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket. Strictly limited to 2,000 numbered copies. Recommended).