Jesse Sykes "I Like the Sound"
Tune of the Day
"Blue Rondo a la Turk" on the Two Generations of Brubeck album. Wow.
There are many fine versions of this tune, but this one gets me dancing, clapping, fist-pounding, whatever, every time....and it's not easy to dance in, what, 9/8? I love tunes that grow, build, develop, and move through changes. This one just picks me up and takes me right along with it. Great melding of jazz and rock idioms, too. It's fun to imagine Dave Brubeck setting the groove and then sitting back to hear where his kids and their friends take it.
You can continue exploring Dave and the kids on Two Generations of Brubeck, "The Great Spirit Made Us All". And Chris Brubeck's rock/jazz band Sky King on "Secret Sauce".
For extra credit, give a "spin" to Chase, "Bochawa" from their last album, Pure Music.
Anyway, that's my two cents today.
There are many fine versions of this tune, but this one gets me dancing, clapping, fist-pounding, whatever, every time....and it's not easy to dance in, what, 9/8? I love tunes that grow, build, develop, and move through changes. This one just picks me up and takes me right along with it. Great melding of jazz and rock idioms, too. It's fun to imagine Dave Brubeck setting the groove and then sitting back to hear where his kids and their friends take it.
You can continue exploring Dave and the kids on Two Generations of Brubeck, "The Great Spirit Made Us All". And Chris Brubeck's rock/jazz band Sky King on "Secret Sauce".
For extra credit, give a "spin" to Chase, "Bochawa" from their last album, Pure Music.
Anyway, that's my two cents today.
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"Don’t Disappear Now" by Marshall Crenshaw, off his Life’s Too Short album. Great production by Ed Stasium, a killer guitar riff (doubled by Marshall on a 6-string baritone guitar. Love it!), great song chord progression and melody, muscular drumming by Kenny Aronoff. Marshall is an American treasure! |
Greetings, Slaw! Yes, I read this thread a lot more than I post to it. So many great suggestions by others. You and BDP, for example, share a wealth of knowledge about music, musicians and recording in your posts. Given my less frequent posts, I’ll give you two cuts from two great albums I listened to today: Joe Jackson, “Kings of the City”, from Fast Forward. Rodney Crowell, “Flatland Hillbillies”, from Texas. And, +1 for “Desperados Waiting for a Train”. As a matter of fact, last night I saw Darrell Scott and his Bluegrass Band. Darrell played on 4-5 Guy Clark albums and last night did a great version of “Desperados...”. |
the late Amy Winehouse - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuanbnnzXQ4 |
"Desperados" is a great song, @slaw, written by Guy Clark. One band I was in performed it regularly. My song of the day is "Go West", a really "fun" song on Geraint Watkins 2004 album on Yep Rock, Dial W For Watkins. Bob Dylan: "Geraint Watkins is my favorite English pianist". Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe apparently agree, as they have both had him in their bands. He was also in Pearl Harbor's road band in the 1980's (she was on Columbia in the U.S., Stiff Records in the UK, and toured with Nick Lowe, Costello, and The Clash over there. She was for awhile married to Clash bassist Paul Simonon). When I told Pearl (I was a member of her band in 2002-03. She's a real sweetheart.) I thought it very hip of her to have Geraint in her band, she was surprised I knew of him. Hey babe, you're not dealing with a "normal" musician here. ;-) Before I looked at the song's credits, I thought "Go West" might be a song from one of those Bob Hope/Bing Crosby buddy movies. It's a real hoot, a song I guarantee you've never heard anything like. I love it! The album is still available from Yep Rock on CD for about ten bucks. Money well spent. |
"Heroes & Villains" by Geraint Watkins, off his Dial 'W' For Watkins album. I've never heard a cover version of a song (the very odd H & V, written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks and found on the Beach Boys Smiley Smile album) that so completely transformed the song from what it had been into something completely different: from an Art-Rock mini-masterpiece to a Swing/Jump Blues tune with Scat singing. Genius! |
"Keep Your Distance", both versions. With Buddy & Julie Miller’s version you get their wonderful 2-part harmony duet throughout the song. With Richard Thompson’s original, his distinctive vocals and guitar playing (on his solo, he makes his Strat sound like a steel guitar), and the fantastic bass playing of one of the all-time greats, Jerry Scheff (Elvis, T Bone Burnett, LOTS of studio work). On this song, Jerry uses the technique of inversion, one of my favorite things in music, "pedaling" (staying on one note) as the other players move through the song’s chord changes. That is possible only when the note being played is contained within the other chords that come around. Rather than remaining the Tonic of the chord (the root note), the note becomes one of the other notes in the following chord(s), a say 3rd or 5th above the Tonic. Musicians who play in such a fashion as to sound "impressive" (chops, technique) don’t think in this kind of "musical" way. It’s not technically difficult to play inversions, it just sounds really cool. And even if the listener doesn’t realize what the bassist is doing, playing inversions creates a musical tension that, when finally released (the bassist must play a different note when a chord not containing the note he is pedaling on comes along), is very "satisfying" (the ol’ tension-and-release). Just another example of how the best musicians approach the creating of music. By the way, J.S. Bach’s music is chock full of inversions. He is, infact, the Master at it’s use. |