On a session-to-session basis, in slightly varying combinations, drummer
Sly Dunbar
, percussionist
Uziah "Sticky" Thompson
, bassist
Robbie Shakespeare
, keyboardist
Wally Badarou
, guitarists
Barry Reynolds
and
Mikey Chung
, and engineer
Alex Sadkin
made up the in-house team at
Island
founder
Chris Blackwell
's
Compass Point
, a studio located just outside Nassau in the Bahamas. As
Blackwell
recalls in
David Katz
's excellent liner notes to this set, titled
Funky Nassau: The Compass Point Story 1980-1986
, "I wanted a new, progressive sounding band. I wanted a Jamaican rhythm section with an edgy mid range and a brilliant synth player." That's what he got, and more, and it made -- or, in the case of
Talking Heads
Tom Tom Club
, enhanced -- some of the most advanced and adventurous music of the '80s, a great deal of which went down a storm in clubs across the planet. The "Compass Point All-Stars", as they were called, were as malleable as they were distinctive -- check the range between
Grace Jones
'
Warm Leatherette
,
Joe Cocker
Sheffield Steel
Black Uhuru
Chill Out
, and
Gwen Guthrie
Portrait
, all of which sound clearly connected, plump, bright, and ringing. For the most part, the choices pulled together for this disc are representative, if somewhat arbitrary; just about any other
track from
Jones
Guthrie
, or
Sly & Robbie
would've been as functional. There are several golden truffles pulled up here that were previously known only to the most keen:
Guy Cuevas
' skywalking
"Obsession"
(off a France-only 12"),
Cristina
's wobbling
"You Rented a Space"
(produced and written by
Robert Palmer
, it is the oddest thing he did,
"The Silver Gun"
excepted, but it wasn't released until a reissue of
Sleep It Off
), and a
goof-off in the best possible way -- a delirious cover of
Yarbrough & Peoples
"Don't Stop the Music,"
issued under the name
Bits & Pieces
. The collective's output documented throughout these seven years doesn't loom as largely as that of the teams that made
Motown
or
Stax
, but when it comes to unduplicated behind-the-scenes innovation of the last 35 years, you can put them up there with the
Mizell
brothers,
the Chic Organization
Martin Hannett
Jam & Lewis
the Bomb Squad
Timbaland
. ~ Andy Kellman