In the realm of power funk and jazz-rock, Tower of Power was an original voice, one carved from a unique place within an exceptionally heady moment. And this convergence of forces, clearly, has yet to cool some 53 years hence.

Horns? They've carried up to six at a time, to hell with diminished door splits. A big band of scorching funk, Tower of Power traces its roots to 1968 Oakland, where it flourished in a thicket of sound tearing at industry barriers. The band, initially dubbed the Motowns, was founded at the juncture which begat Blood Sweat and Tears, Chicago Transit Authority, and Earth Wind and Fire. Even then, the soul—if you will—of Tower of Power was born in the muscular arrangements and searing leads of the former as much as the latter's R&B core.

As "horn bands" became a thing, the Grass Roots (studio musicians, sure, but an explosive lot out of the Wrecking Crew), the Electric Flag, the second Butterfield Blues Band, the Buckinghams, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Ten Wheel Drive, Brass Construction, Chase, Average White Band and the Ides of March (remember "Vehicle"?) tossed this urgency through the pop charts. And on isolated singles, the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors, the Rascals and so many others were briefly enraptured in brass. Into the 1970s, numerous rock ensembles either formed around a horn section or similarly adopted one, so exciting the concept: Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Janis Joplin's Kozmic Blues Band, the revolutionary all-women Isis, Elephant's Memory (Lennon-Ono collaborators) and blue-eyed hitmakers Rare Earth among them, with Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes carrying the torch into the next decade. It's no small irony that R&B artists begat the tradition of imbedding horns into the music, an outgrowth of late1940s jump bands. Like rock and roll itself, this was an artform of African Americans, yet few members of the most popular horn bands have been people of color.

Tower of Power was founded by tenor saxophonist and vocalist