Even if you’ve never read Frank Herbert’s Dune, you may well have encountered its adaptations to a variety of other media: comic books, video games, board games, television series, and of course films, David Lynch’s 1984 version and Denis Villeneuve’s two-parter earlier this decade. But before any of those came Dune, the jazz-funk album by keyboardist and bandleader David Matthews. Released in 1977 on the popular jazz label CTI Records, it devotes its entire first side to a 20-minute suite ostensibly inspired by Herbert’s novel, consisting of the pieces “Arrakis,” “Sandworms,” “Song of the Bene Gesserit,” and “Muad’dib.”
You’ll notice that the typography on the cover of Matthews’ Dune seems awfully reminiscent of Star Wars, a film that had come out the very same year. It’s not exactly false advertising, since the album closes with versions of both Star Wars’ main theme and Princess Leia’s theme, supplemented by the theme from Douglas Trumbull’s Silent Running and even David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” According to jazz historian Doug Payne, the concept was the idea of CTI founder Creed Taylor.
Taylor had originally hired Matthews as CTI’s chief arranger, the latter’s years of experience as James Brown’s musical director having promised the potential to imbue the label’s releases with disco appeal. In addition to Matthews on the keyboards, Dune also features heavy-hitting session players from the late-seventies jazz world like Randy Brecker, Steve Gadd, Grover Washington, Jr., Hiram Bullock, and David Sanborn. Fans of obscurantist hip-hop may also recognize Matthews’ “Space Oddity” cover as a sample source for MF DOOM’s “Rapp Snitch Knishes.”
Much like Bob James, his fellow mastermind of disco-inflected jazz, Matthews has created a body of work that lives on a hip-hop goldmine: his other samplers include Method Man, Redman, and The Notorious B.I.G. But it was in Japan that he found his most enthusiastic listenership. After leaving CTI in 1978, Payne writes, “Matthews went onto record a slew of records for mostly Japanese labels under a variety of guises including Japan’s number one selling jazz group, the Manhattan Jazz Quintet.” If you visit Japan, you may well hear Matthews’ music playing in a local jazz bar.
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Great Mixtapes of 1970s Japanese Jazz: 4 Hours of Funky, Groovy, Fusion‑y Music
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.