"Hard to Face the Music" - Fred Wesley

“Hard to Face the Music” (PDF) from the Idris Muhammad album, House of the Rising Sun

By 1976, disco music had provided Black, Latin, and Italian communities in New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. (the formative cities of the United States) with a safe haven for self-expression that was on the verge of mainstream popularity in American culture. In light of disco’s growing acceptance, it remains unclear as to what exactly led Idris Muhammad and David Matthews to produce this instrumental version of “Hard to Face the Music,” featuring solos by trombonist Fred Wesley and saxophonist David Sanborn, for House of the Rising Sun.

Originally registered as “It’s Hard to Face the Music (When It Ain’t Your Song)” by the legendary Motown duo of Ashford & Simpson, it was produced for The Dynamic Superiors’ 1975 album Pure Pleasure with the abbreviated title of “Face the Music.” Far from a hit, the album wouldn’t be reissued until the 21st century certainly in part due to the lasting effects of Disco Demoltion Night, which promoted homophobic, transphobic, and xenophobic attitudes throughout the ensuing decades. But for that brief period during America’s bicentennial celebration, jazz musicians were producing new music for popular consumption and, unknowingly, shaping the upcoming revolutions in hip hop and warehouse music.

Here’s a YouTube video of The Dynamic Superiors performing its biggest hit “Shoe Shoe Shine” by Ashford & Simpson on Soul Train:

Recommended Reading: Hit Me, Fred: Recollections of a Sideman by Fred Wesley Jr. Published by Duke University Press.