Various Artists – Soul Fire: The Majestic Collection

For just four years surrounding the recent turn of the century, Brooklyn’s Soul Fire Records released some of the finest, funkiest, most in-the-pocket soul music to come along since that genre’s more or less swan song in the late ’70s. The label’s flagship act was Lee Green, a veteran chitlin’ circuit rasper with an impressively back-in-the-day vocal attack — something like James Brown aping that guy in Simply Red — but by far the majority of Soul Fire’s singles were entirely instrumental, including unvarnished Latin grooves, Afro beats and boogaloo alongside the funk and soul.

This two-disc collection showcases 34 of the label’s best 45s and 12-inch singles, including an impressive quartet of Lee Fields tracks, several deep and moody grooves from the Whitfield Brothers (think Booker T in collaboration with DJ Shadow), the crashing keyboard funk of Sugarman 3, and a bona fide ass-shaker by the Explorers called “Clap Your Hands” — that one’s as tight as any party starter since the Meters were in their glory.

In other words, those who are fans both of vintage soul and funk and of the contemporary break beats inspired (or flat out provided) by those old records, as well as those who follow the online Hammond Beat community of international jazz-soul combos, will find The Majestic Collection to be something very near essential. That’s heady praise to be sure, but for its brief tenure, Soul Fire got it right.