Album: Keep On Jumpin'
Year: 1978
Style: Disco
Similar Bands: Chic, Sister Sledge, Donna Summer, First Choice
"One-Word" Review: "Disc-a-Disco"
Based Out Of: NY, NY
Label: Prelude Records
Keep On Jumpin' - Cover & Record
Keep On Jumpin' - Back & Record
Keep On Jumpin'(1978)
- Keep On Jumpin’ 6:56
- Summer Love 6:17/
- In The Bush 8:20
- Summer Love Theme 8:00
Album Rating (1-10): 7.5
Members & Other Bands:Patrick Adams - Producer, Arranger, Mix Engineer (Sister Sledge,Loleatta Holloway, Coolio, Herbie Mann)
Bob Blank - Engineer
Jeff Ader - Engineer
Bob Lichtman - Photography
Trudy Schlachter - Photography
Ancona Design - Cover Concept
Jocelyn Brown - Vocals (Disco Tex & the Sex-O-Lettes, Incognito, Cheatham/Brown)
Angela Howell - Vocals
Gina Tharps - Vocals
Christine Wiltshire - Vocals (Luther)
Norbert Sloley - Musician
Kenneth Mazur - Musician
Richard Taninbaum - Musician
Alan Rubin - Musician (Blues Brothers, The SNL Band)
Charles Jett - Musician
John Clark - Musician
John Campo - Musician
Richard Perry - Musician (Legends, Escorts)
Arthur Clarke - Musician
Kathryn Kienke - Musician
Joe Malin - Musician
Selwart Clarke - Musician (Puncho & His Latin Soul Brothers)
Dianna Halprin - Musician
Linda Lawrence - Musician
Richard Maximoff - Musician (Hampton Strin Quartet)
Jonathan Abramowitz - Musician
Margaret Ross - Musician
Unknown-ness: I’ve never heard of this band. But from the cover, it looks like this is straight up sexy disco. I imagine there to be skates at the ends of those legs in the red tinted sound studio. Love the bubble font, love the energy and I expect this to be terrific disco, not necessarily radio-disco.
Unknown-ness: I’ve never heard of this band. But from the cover, it looks like this is straight up sexy disco. I imagine there to be skates at the ends of those legs in the red tinted sound studio. Love the bubble font, love the energy and I expect this to be terrific disco, not necessarily radio-disco.
Album Review: Four tracks: one an instrumental of the other and two hits. This minimal work is supposed to put out a strong offering. I’ve read that “In The Bush” was a surprise hit that was banned by many stations due to it’s lyrical content.
“Keep On Jumpin’” was the album’s biggest chart topper. It begins with pumpin drums and straightforward bumpin bass. Its stereotypical disco, backed with a string section, and then the vocals of the proud 5 girl chorus. It is a driving toe tapping song filled with echoing, extended vocal holds and a conga drum beat mixed into the instrumental section. The ending plays out repetitively into a fade. It has the step-down-beat generic string section punctuating every chorus repetition.
“Summer Love” has the same stepping drum pulse tempo keeper. Swirling strings bring the intro up to speed to match the angelic, harmonized vocals right away. There are two or three separate sections, one is not more repetitive or chorus like than the next. And the neat thing about not knowing the song is that any section could be next after one ends. It is unpredictable until you’ve memorized the song. Or it could be a bass drum instrumental. A repetitive 4 note keyboard sequence hypnotizes the listener in the first extended instrumental to the point of nausea. With every passing measure, it feels like the ending is coming closer, and once it does reach the end, the listener is woken up with dance euphoria. I’d imagine this would be great on drugs. And after we return to the vocals, it is like nothing has ever changed from the first half of the song. For general listening pleasure, the song is about a minute too long.
“In The Bush” starts out, yet again, with a driving tempo, not really a beat even. It could just be a metronome. The driving nature of this tempo lends the verse to be short quick bursts of disco hooks. The familiar lyric of “beat the clock” (at least that’s what it sounds like) reminds me of Sparks. It was this popular song that got the band into some censorship trouble with the chorus of “Push, Push In The Bush” followed with a singular female voice singing “you know I like it rough, you know I like to get down.” Maybe it is a bit suggestive, but we’ve come a long way since then for what is allowed broadcast. Different variations of the title are sung with the solo female voice enjoying the freedom of not having a strict melody parameter. This song definitely has the most dynamic and experimental melody sections of the other tracks, and thus, is more fun to listen to, as it does not get old as quick, even if the canvas is very repetitive. At one point the lyrics read “You know I like to get down…in the bush, bush.”
“Summer Love Theme” is an instrumental version of “Summer Love” And there you have it.
“Keep On Jumpin’” was the album’s biggest chart topper. It begins with pumpin drums and straightforward bumpin bass. Its stereotypical disco, backed with a string section, and then the vocals of the proud 5 girl chorus. It is a driving toe tapping song filled with echoing, extended vocal holds and a conga drum beat mixed into the instrumental section. The ending plays out repetitively into a fade. It has the step-down-beat generic string section punctuating every chorus repetition.
“Summer Love” has the same stepping drum pulse tempo keeper. Swirling strings bring the intro up to speed to match the angelic, harmonized vocals right away. There are two or three separate sections, one is not more repetitive or chorus like than the next. And the neat thing about not knowing the song is that any section could be next after one ends. It is unpredictable until you’ve memorized the song. Or it could be a bass drum instrumental. A repetitive 4 note keyboard sequence hypnotizes the listener in the first extended instrumental to the point of nausea. With every passing measure, it feels like the ending is coming closer, and once it does reach the end, the listener is woken up with dance euphoria. I’d imagine this would be great on drugs. And after we return to the vocals, it is like nothing has ever changed from the first half of the song. For general listening pleasure, the song is about a minute too long.
“In The Bush” starts out, yet again, with a driving tempo, not really a beat even. It could just be a metronome. The driving nature of this tempo lends the verse to be short quick bursts of disco hooks. The familiar lyric of “beat the clock” (at least that’s what it sounds like) reminds me of Sparks. It was this popular song that got the band into some censorship trouble with the chorus of “Push, Push In The Bush” followed with a singular female voice singing “you know I like it rough, you know I like to get down.” Maybe it is a bit suggestive, but we’ve come a long way since then for what is allowed broadcast. Different variations of the title are sung with the solo female voice enjoying the freedom of not having a strict melody parameter. This song definitely has the most dynamic and experimental melody sections of the other tracks, and thus, is more fun to listen to, as it does not get old as quick, even if the canvas is very repetitive. At one point the lyrics read “You know I like to get down…in the bush, bush.”
“Summer Love Theme” is an instrumental version of “Summer Love” And there you have it.
Stand Out Track: In The Bush
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