jazz – The Wire

Radha Thomas the One-Time Rock Singer Revisits the Magic of the Vocal-Guitarist Jazz Duet

Along with her Ensemble, Thomas has kept jazz alive in Bangalore.

Jazz has two fundamental qualities that differentiate it from other forms of music. Improvisation and innovation. Not since Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass did their famous set of four albums, under the Pablo label famous for their black & white record jackets, have I heard a voice/guitar duet. Happily, I have the whole set.

Perhaps less known, but equally admirable, is Joe Pass with Sarah Vaughan. Try listening to ‘That old flame’ in the Vaughan album How long has this been going on.

In jazz, the fewer the number of players the more difficult it gets. So the trio is a more difficult format than the quartet or the quintet for example. Of course the duet then, logically, is more difficult than a trio. In jazz literature, the voice and guitar combo is not too common. To that extent, Radha, who normally prefers to play with keyboard players, has changed gears with this album. For a singer with roots in rock, she does an excellent job with jazz which I am sure is now her first love.

Besides the proficiency of the vocalist, there is a lot of pressure on the instrumentalist, the guitarist in this case who has to weave in a few solo melodic lines along with the simultaneous bass lines to make the accompaniment sound full so that you don’t miss the other instruments.

Photo: By arrangement

Radha Thomas has found 3 very proficient guitarists who did a great job of soloing in between verses. The album also has some of my favourite standards. Here are a few of my favourite tracks.

The album starts with that old George Gershwin favourite from Porgy and Bess, ‘Summertime’ which is always a challenge because it is the most overdone song in jazz and every dilettante’s favourite. Radha plays with the words to scat and refresh this old favourite.

She sings another one of my favourites, ‘It could be happen to you‘ which was composed by Jimmy Van Heusen with lyrics by Johnny Burke. It first appeared in the Paramount musical comedy And the Angels Sing in 1943. Chet Baker fans will remember that this was one of his favourites which he injected with an overdose of melancholy.

‘I fall in love too easily’ was introduced by Frank Sinatra in 1945 in the film Anchors Aweigh. I am sorry to repeat myself, but I can’t help thinking of Baker once again. The lyrics in those days were so universal that they could apply to many of us. They also propounded a general philosophy on love and life.

I fall in love too easily

I fall in love too fast

I fall in love too terribly hard

For love to ever last

Daahoud was an album by Max Roach and Clifford Brown, who later died in a car crash. Daahoud is the Arabic equivalent of David or my beloved. Brown named the song after a friend of his called Talib Dawud. Jazz folklore has it that he was also his drug dealer. This is actually a consummate instrumental track for horns but Radha weaves through the melody with ease. Her choice of the guitarists for this album is commendable. The 3 guitarists – Reg Shwager, Pete McCann and Paul Meyers – have compatible styles of playing the jazz guitar so the tracks move seamlessly from one to the other with no stylistic change.

Radha wet her feet as a singer by singing with the Human Bondage, a premier rock band in India in the 70s. She then developed a strong liking to jazz and later left for New York to pursue her ambition of being a jazz singer. With day jobs in travel and publishing, she sang in jazz clubs at night. One of her most remarkable collaborations was with jazz fusion guitarist Ryo Kawasaki who also pioneered the use of the synthesiser. Radha boasted of a full 4 octave range during her time with Ryo.

Ryo even wrote a song for Radha that was called a ‘Song for Radha’ in three parts. YouTube also reveals Radha and Ryo performing ‘Lush Life’ and ‘Trinkets and Things’ on a demo tape.

Radha is no stranger to the duet. Her earlier album released in 2020 was also a duet with Berklee alumnus pianist Aman Mahajan whom she has worked with for the last ten years. In the same year, she also produced an EP, Vocalese: A tribute to Chet Baker in 2020. The influence of Chet in Radha’s music is quite noticeable to the astute jazz listener.

Radha is responsible for keeping jazz alive and kicking in Bangalore with her band Radha Thomas Ensemble. Her latest album As I Sing adds to her already impressive ouevre.

Prabhakar Mundkur is an ad veteran with over 40 years in advertising in India, Africa and Asia.

Tony Bennett’s Music Combines America’s Musical Heritage With the Modern

With a career that spanned almost 80 years, Bennett’s music left an indelible mark on the American music industry.

In the history of American popular music, there have been few luminaries as enduring and innovative as Tony Bennett.

With a career that spanned almost 80 years, Bennett’s smooth tones, unique phrasing and visionary musical collaborations left an indelible mark on vocal jazz and the recording industry as a whole.

That his death at the age of 96 on July 21, 2023, was mourned by artists as varied as Keith Urban, Ozzy Osbourne and Harry Connick Jr. should come as no surprise. Yes, Bennett was a jazz crooner. But if his voice was always a constant – even late into his 80s, way past an age when most other singers have seen their vocal abilities diminish – then his embrace of the contemporary was every bit a facet of Bennett’s appeal.

Vocal innovator

Bennett’s journey is a testament to the power of daring innovation.

From the early days of his career in the 1950s to his final recordings in the early 2020s, he fearlessly explored new musical territories, revolutionising vocal jazz and captivating audiences across generations.

His vocal style and phrasing were distinctive and set him apart from other artists of his time. He utilised a delayed or “laid-back” approach to falling on the note, a technique known as “rubato.” This created a sense of anticipation in his phrasing, adding an element of surprise to his performances. Through Bennett’s skilled use of rubato, he was able to play with the tempo and rhythm of a song, bending and stretching musical phrases to evoke a range of emotions. This subtle manipulation of timing gave his songs a natural and conversational quality, making listeners feel as though he was intimately sharing his stories with them.

Armed with this silky, playful voice, Bennett found fame fairly early on in his career, delivering jazz standards alongside the likes of Mel Tormé and Nat King Cole. By the mid-1960s, he was being touted by Frank Sinatra as “the best singer in the business.”

But his musical style fell out of fashion in the 1970s – a lean period during which Bennett almost succumbed to a drug overdose. Then, in the 1990s, Bennett found a new audience and set off a series of collaborations with contemporary musical stars that would become the standard for his later career.

No genre of artistry was deemed off-limits for Bennett. “Duets: An American Classic,” released to coincide with his 80th birthday in 2006, saw collaborations with country stars such as k.d. lang and the Dixie Chicks – now known as the Chicks – and soul legend Stevie Wonder, alongside kindred jazz spirits such as Diana Krall. “Duets II,” a 2011 follow-up, saw further explorations with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Queen Latifah, Willie Nelson and Amy Winehouse, in what would become the British singer’s last recording.

But his cross-generational, cross-genre and cross-cultural appeal is perhaps best exemplified by his collaborations with Lady Gaga, first on the 2014 Grammy-winning album “Cheek to Cheek.” The recording brought together two artists from different generations, genres and backgrounds, uniting them in a harmonious celebration of jazz classics. The collaboration not only showcased each one’s vocal prowess, but also sent a powerful message about the unifying nature of music.

Lady Gaga, a pop artist with avant-garde leanings, might have seemed an unlikely partner for Bennett, the quintessential jazz crooner. Yet their musical chemistry and mutual admiration resulted in an album that mesmerised audiences worldwide. “Cheek to Cheek” effortlessly transcended musical boundaries, while the duo’s magnetic stage presence and undeniable talent enchanted listeners.

The successful fusion of jazz and pop encouraged artists to experiment beyond traditional boundaries, leading to more cross-genre projects across the industry – proving that such projects could go beyond one-off novelties, and be profitable at that.

Timeless artistry

Bennett’s embrace of contemporary artists did not mean that he abandoned his own musical self. By blending traditional jazz with contemporary elements, he managed to captivate audiences across generations, appealing to both longtime fans and new listeners.

One key aspect of Bennett’s success was his ability to embody the sentiment of old America, reminiscent of artists like Sinatra, Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong, while infusing contemporary nuances that resonated with the human condition of a more modern era. His approach to music captured both the essence and struggle of America, giving his songs a timeless and universal appeal. Moreover, his voice conveyed familiarity and comfort, akin to listening to a beloved uncle.

Bennett’s albums stood out not only for his soulful voice and impeccable delivery but also for the way he drew others from varied musical backgrounds into his world of jazz sensibilities. As a producer, he recognised the importance of nurturing creativity and bringing out the best in artists.

Meanwhile, Bennett’s approach to evolving his own sound while preserving its essence sets him apart as an artist. Fearless in his pursuit of innovation, he delved into contemporary musical elements and collaborated with producers to infuse new sonic dimensions into his later albums. The result drew listeners into an intimate and immersive, concert-like acoustic journey.

Depth of emotion

The greats in music have an ability to speak to the human experience. And either in collaboration with others or on his own, Bennett was able to achieve this time and time again.

His albums were successful not only due to their technical brilliance and musicality but also because Bennett’s voice conveyed a depth of emotion that transcended barriers of time and culture, touching the hearts of listeners from various backgrounds. There was a universality in his music that made him a beloved and revered artist across the globe.

Bennett’s life spanned decades of societal upheavals in the United States. But in his music, listeners could always find beauty in challenging times. And as the 20th- and 21st-century American music industry went through its own revolutions, Bennett’s artistic evolution mirrored the changes, cementing his place as a music icon who defies the boundaries of time and trends.

Jose Valentino Ruiz, Program Director of Music Business & Entrepreneurship, University of Florida.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Saxophonist Wayne Shorter Changed History – Sometimes Consciously, Sometimes Not

“Everyone’s been hijacked from the cradle, but some turtles will make it to the sea.”
∼ Wayne Shorter

I guess you can blame Wayne Shorter for making legions of rock-and-roll fans believe they were actually listening to jazz, when he took a solo on Steely Dan’s tune Aja, back in 1977. But this wasn’t because of some deeply thought-out decision by Shorter, to misappropriate the ears of rock-and-rollers. The truth is rather banal.

According to an interview by Eugene Holley published in NewMusicUsa.org, “We had this piece (‘Aja’), which had this long modal section,” Fagen (Donald, co-founder of Steely Dan) proudly told me in my interview with him in 2013. “And we thought, ‘who would be the ideal person for the track?’ And we said, ‘Wayne Shorter.’ On the first try, he said no. But we knew someone who knew him, and he asked him, because he didn’t know who we were. So we sent him the track, and he liked it and decided to come in. And he nailed it on the first take. That was one of the best moments for us.”

Musicians, like other professionals, are for hire. And sometimes they change the course of history without meaning to.

Wayne Shorter significantly influenced the way jazz bifurcated from bebop, a complex and virtuosic form of music dominating the scene in the late ’50s and ’60s, to the more accessible jazz fusion of the ’70s. Not merely as a sax-for-hire with Steely Dan or Joni Mitchell, but in a deliberate and conscious way.

He was part of a movement that was taking place in New York City which began with Miles Davis. Davis was at the time the most significant and influential jazz musician in the whole world. If you got a gig playing with Miles, your career was pretty much made. Shorter’s biographer Michelle Mercer recalls what he said about the first time he played on stage with Davis. “I felt like a cello, I felt the viola, I felt liquid, dot-dash, and colours started really coming.”

Shorter played in his band from the mid ’60s to the early ’70s. Davis was focused on reaching out to the enormous audiences generously funding the rock, folk and funk steamroller of the day. His way was to create a simpler, groove based, swayable type of music with way fewer chord changes. It naturally allowed the inclusion of many more fans who easily found relatable moments.

Wayne Shorter playing with Weather Report, Amsterdam, 1980. Photo: Chris Hakkens/CC BY 2.0

By the time Miles’ Bitches Brew was released, it was just a matter of time before the stellar band members all branched out on their own creating a powerful jazz fusion age. The most famous of them were John McLaughlin (Mahavishnu Orchestra), Chick Corea (Return to Forever), Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul (Weather Report). There were many others too.

Shorter came from a solid bebop background and you can hear this in his phrasing, even during the Weather Report era. But he wanted to shed that persona and believe in what he was trying to create. “I’m not into composition. I’m into decomposition,” he once told musician Jason Moran.

There is a lyrical and vocal quality to his soloing, which is perhaps why through his career he has collaborated with vocalists. Something that makes my heart sing. I loved his album Native Dancer with Milton Nascimento released in 1975. “You know the kind of bossa nova that sells? ‘Girl From Ipanema’ that kind of thing? Well, that’s ok… but he (Nascimento) was coming from the underpinnings of molte-something, the Amazon and Africa and everything, and… he had another sound in his voice. It wasn’t like he was trying to be someone else,” Shorter told Christian McBride in an interview.

The mid 1970s is when I moved to New York City and took my own stab at the jazz scene there. I was playing with Ryo Kawasaki, a Japanese jazz guitar player with amazing chops and a lovely sense of where music was headed. We made a couple of albums together. He was also a member of the Gil Evans Orchestra and Elvin Jones’ band. One day he told me that Wayne Shorter and Weather Report were looking for a singer and that he had sent them some music that we had recorded together. I was kind of taken aback and mostly started to panic. I had no idea if I could do it and really didn’t like the idea at all.

To my huge surprise Shorter called me one afternoon, probably around 1978 or 1979, and we talked for a while on the phone. He said he really liked my singing and was considering a vocalist for the band. Nothing happened after that and I’m glad, because I wasn’t ready at all.

In 1993 my friend, jazz vocalist and fellow Ryo Kawasaki alumnus Clare Forster, made an entire album of his music called, ‘Clare Forster Sings Wayne Shorter.’ It’s a beautiful tribute to him and the singing is just magnificent. She says, “For many years I have been a great admirer of Wayne Shorter’s compositions. His raw, human sound through the saxophone first drew me to his music.” Perhaps deliberately, she leaves out Footprints, Shorter’s most famous tune and one that has been widely covered by many musicians.

Cut to 2021 and Wayne Shorter, age 88 has collaborated with the Harvard professor, Grammy-winning, bass player and vocalist Esperanza Spalding to produce an enormous piece of work named Ephigenia. It’s an opera that took eight years to make and involved all sorts of obstacles and challenges. Luckily, they were able to stage multiple performances before Wayne Shorter took his final encore, saying to the audience, “Nothing is what I’m try to keep and go forward with. Nothing. Thank you.”

RIP Wayne.

Radha Thomas is a jazz vocalist, composer and author. She lives in Bangalore.

Bringing Buddy Guy to Mumbai, Mahindra Blues Festival Creates a Buzz Again This Year

The line-up made for an unforgettable weekend.

Within a stone’s throw from St. Andrew’s Church, down the Band Stand Promenade to the Portuguese Fort, raw emotion, energy and passion ruled the 11th edition of the Mahindra Blues Festival, 2023 at the iconic Mehboob Studios. Held in Mumbai on February 11 and 12, 2023, the resplendent line-up made for an unforgettable weekend.

The significant highlight was the moment when Buddy Guy, in his element, took charge of the Polka Dot Parlour Stage on the final night and kick-started his ‘Damn Right Farewell’ world tour, which marks the 86 year old’s retirement from live music. Prior to that, the anchor Brian Tellis announced that the Mahindra Blues Festival will make its way to New York this year, at a venue no less than the prestigious Lincoln Centre.

The audience at the 2023 Mahindra Blues Festival. Photo: Dipak Chandra Das

Day one saw the winners of the ‘Band Hunt’ – the New-Delhi based Karan Mahajan Band – perform with Gurpreet Kaur on vocals, Ravali Komanapally on keys, Tanisha Bhatnagar on bass, Siddharth Jain on drums and composer Mahajan on guitar. They were judged the winners by a panel comprising Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa. The band put up a formidable performance at the studio’s Garden Stage, under the clear blue sky.

“I was there for the first festival in 2011, when Buddy Guy headlined. Buddy and Taj [Mahal] are some of the pioneers of this music and we wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for them, so it was as big an honour as it can get, being on the same bill. We got to speak with Taj Mahal (born Henry Fredericks Jr.) and he was so gracious and generous with his time. We made a lot of new friends …it was an amazing amazing experience for the band,” Mahajan told The Wire.

Apart from the Karan Mahajan Band, day one featured winner of the Mahindra Blues Band Hunt, 2018, Arinjoy Sarkar, Argentinian bluesman Ivan Singh and blues legend Taj Mahal. The 2017 Grammy win for the Taj Keb Mo combination – Taj’s collaboration with Keb’ Mo’ – had brought his Grammy tally to three wins and 14 nominations, and underscored his undiminished relevance more than 50 years after his solo debut.

Day two witnessed performances by 24-year-old American blues artist and Grammy Award winner Christone Kingfish Ingram, the defining blues voice of his generation, at the Soul Strat Saloon Stage. “I am glad to meet my Indian fans and be a part of the rich Indian culture,” said Ingram after his performance.

The garden stage saw a 15-minute performance by the Beatz Crew and the Nanhi Kali Choir as a part of the ‘Blues in Schools’ initiative, where they sang a beautiful rendition of the blues classic ‘Sweet Home Chicago’.

Stylistically closing out the night was Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and pioneer of Chicago’s fabled West Side sound, Buddy Guy.

Moments before Buddy Guy – in his signature black-and-white polka-dot shirt and a pair of blue dungarees – took total control of the packed house inside the Polka Dot Parlour Stage, fans saw clips from the new documentary Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase The Blues Away, filmed in honour of the legend’s 85th birthday by PBS American Masters. The film follows his rise from a childhood spent picking cotton in Louisiana to becoming one of the most influential guitar players of all time. An electrifying performance followed suit, with numbers like ‘I Just Want To Make Love To You’, ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ and ‘Skin Deep’, leaving the audience craving for more.

This is the only festival where all the artists who have performed on both days come back with an all-star jam to bring the curtains down. The same was seen in this year’s final act, when Buddy Guy himself invited the artists Taj Mahal, Ivan Singh, Christone Kingfish and Arinjoy Sarkar for the final jam.

The final jam at the 2023 Mahindra Blues Festival. Photo: Dipak Chandra Das

“We have been making it for the festival for many years and it’s always been a delightful experience,” said singer Joi Barua, a resident of Bandra, Mumbai

Over the years, Mahindra Blues has hosted legends like Walter Trout, Robert Randolf, Jonny Lang, Matt Scohfield, Popa Chubby, Shemekia Copeland, Beth Hart, Ana Popovich, Dana Fuchs, Tedeschi Trucks Band, John Lee Hooker Jr. Jimmy Thackery and our very own Rudy Wallang and his band Soulmate. It satisfies a hunger that festivals seldom manage to.

Sattyakee D’com Bhuyan is founder director of the D’Passion Collective.

Edited by Jahnavi Sen.

Remembering Charlie Watts, the Drummer who Brought Some Jazz into One of the Greatest Rock Bands

Watts never aimed to be a virtuoso, opting instead to serve what the Rolling Stones tried to do with his steady beats.

In an era when rock drummers were larger-than-life showmen with big kits and egos to match, Charlie Watts remained the quiet man behind a modest drum set. But Watts wasn’t your typical rock drummer.

Part of the Rolling Stones setup from 1963 until his death on August 24, 2021, Watts provided the back-beat to their greatest hits by injecting jazz sensibilities – and swing – into the Stones’ sound.

As a musicologist and co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to the Rolling Stones – as well as a fan who has seen the Stones live more than 20 times over the past five decades – I see Watts as being integral to the band’s success.

Like Ringo Starr and other drummers who emerged during the 1960s British pop explosion, Watts was influenced by the swing and big band sound that was hugely popular in the U.K. in the 1940s and 1950s.

Modest with the sticks

Watts wasn’t formally trained as a jazz drummer, but jazz musicians like Jelly Roll Morton, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk were early influences.

In a 2012 interview with the New Yorker, he recalled how their records informed his playing style.

“I bought a banjo, and I didn’t like the dots on the neck,” Watts said. “So I took the neck off, and at the same time I heard a drummer called Chico Hamilton, who played with Gerry Mulligan and I wanted to play like that, with brushes. I didn’t have a snare drum, so I put the banjo head on a stand.”

Watts’ first group, the Jo Jones All Stars, were a jazz band. And elements of jazz remained throughout his Stones career, providing Watts with a wide stylistic versatility that was critical to the Stones’ forays beyond blues and rock to country, reggae, disco, funk and even punk.

There was a modesty in his playing that came from his jazz learning. There are no big rock drum solos. He made sure the attention was never on him or his drumming – his role was keeping the songs going forward, giving them movement.

He also didn’t use a big kit – no gongs, no scaffolding. He kept a modest one more typically found in jazz quartets and quintets.

Likewise, Watts’ occasional use of brushes over sticks – such as in ‘Melody’ from 1976’s ‘Black and Blue’ – more explicitly shows his debt to jazz drummers.

But he didn’t come in with one style. Watts was trained to adapt, while keeping elements of jazz. You can hear it in the R’n’ B of ‘(I can’t Get No) Satisfaction,’ to the infernal samba-like rhythm of ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ – two songs in which Watts’ contribution is central.

And a song like ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ from 1971’s ‘Sticky Fingers’ develops from one of Keith Richards’ highest calibre riffs into a long concluding instrumental section, unique in the Stones’ song catalogue, of Santana-esque Latin jazz, containing some great syncopated rhythmic shots and tasteful hi-hat playing through which Watts drives the different musical sections.

You hear similar elements in ‘Gimme Shelter’ and other classic Rolling Stones songs – it is perfectly placed drum fills and gestures that make the song and surprise you, always in the background and never dominating.

Powering the ‘engine room’

So central was Watts to the Stones that when bassist Bill Wyman retired from the band after the 1989 ‘Steel Wheels’ tour, it was Watts who was tasked with picking his replacement.

He needed a bass player that would fit his style. But his choice of Darryl Jones as Wyman’s replacement was not the only key partnership for Watts. He played off the beat, complementing Richards’ very syncopated, riff-driven guitar style. Watts and Richards set the groove for so many Stones songs, such as ‘Honky Tonk Women’ or ‘Start Me Up’. If you watched them live, you’d notice Richards looking at Watts at all times – his eyes fixated on the drummer, searching for where the musical accents are, and matching their rhythmic “shots” and off-beats.

Watts did not aspire to be a virtuoso like John Bonham of Led Zeppelin or The Who’s Keith Moon – there was no drumming excess. From that initial jazz training, he kept his distance from outward gestures.

But for nearly six decades, he was the main occupant, as Richards put it, of the Rolling Stones’ legendary “engine room.”

Victor Coelho is a professor of music at Boston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Charlie Parker: Celebrating a Century of the Genius Who Changed Jazz Forever

Though he lived hard and died young, Bird’s genre-busting style of sax playing ignited jazz’s bebop revolution.

His audience knew him as “Yardbird”, or more usually, just “Bird”. The variety of sobriquets given to jazz alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, who would have turned 100 on August 29, 2020, is indicative of his different personae – most important, of course, his musical personalities.

Parker was a legendary soloist, inspiring bandleader, daring composer, ingenious innovator and a source of inspiration for many generations still. A jazz idol, full stop. But his off-stage personality revealed a more tragic figure: a drug addict and alcoholic.

Bird lived hard and lost his performance licence, several jobs and attempted suicide twice. All in all, his physical and mental health were already waning at an early age. That he died young then, at just 34 years old, was not really a shock. He passed away a week after his last public performance, on March 12, 1955. This last concert took place in the famous New York nightclub Birdland – aptly named in his honour.

Charlie Parker is considered “one of the most striking performers in the entire history of jazz, and one of the most influential”, according to the Rough Guide to Jazz. The more authoritative encyclopedia in academic circles, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, qualifies him in comparable terms and characterises Bird as a “supremely creative improviser”.

Early bird

Parker was born and raised in a musical family in Kansas City, Missouri, which was known for its vibrant music scene. He started to play the saxophone when he was 11 years old, taking lessons at a local music school and joining high school bands.

But he chiefly developed as a musician by carefully studying his older peers. Inspired by the big bands of Bennie Moten and Count Basie, Parker embarked on the blues and swing tradition of his time. Yet he felt something was missing.

Hip-Hop Is the Soundtrack to BLM Protests, Continuing a Tradition That Dates Back to the Blues

Rap songs from Public Enemy and Ludacris have been heard at marches over the killing of George Floyd. The history of Black American music as a form of protest dates back to the 19th century.

The sound of Public Enemy’s 1989 song “Fight the Power” blared as face-masked protesters in Washington, DC broke into a spontaneous rendition of the electric slide dance near the White House.

It was the morning of June 14, and an Instagram user captured the moment, commenting: “If Trump is in the White House this morning he’s being woken up by … a Public Enemy dance party.”

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If Trump is in the White House this morning he’s being woken up by @mrchuckd_pe @publicenemy a Public Enemy dance party (Repost @rayten00 )

A post shared by Pearl (@pearlcaliforniacountry) on Jun 14, 2020 at 12:11pm PDT

Coming amid widespread protests over police brutality and structural racism in the United States, the song is an apt musical backdrop. It opens with a quote from civil rights activist Thomas “TNT” Todd before going into a sample-laden funk rap track referencing past black protest songs from the Isley Brothers and James Brown.

Demonstrators in other parts of the country similarly used hip-hop as a form of sonic protest. In New York, protesters chanted the hook to Ludacris’s 2001 song “Move B—-” as they were penned in on the Manhattan Bridge by police officers.

Footage of the crowd singing, “Move b—-, get out the way. Get out the way b—-, get out the way” to uniformed officers seemingly got the approval of Ludacris, who reposted a video on his Twitter account accompanied by a raised fist emoji.

Protesters chanting Ludacris’ lyrics on the Manhattan Bridge: “Move bitch, get out the way, get out the way bitch, get out the way” #nycprotests pic.twitter.com/WwojcodRUY

— Trending (@Trends4USA) June 3, 2020

No one who has listened to hip-hop since its origins in the 1970s should be surprised that rap music has become the soundtrack to protests in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis on May 25 while in police custody.

Hip-hop artists have protested police violence in their music for decades. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, rappers from different corners of the United States described the brutal and discriminatory police tactics they witnessed in their communities.

Most famous perhaps is N.W.A.’s “F— tha Police” from 1988. Fellow Los Angeles rapper Ice T faced backlash after his metal band, Body Count, released “Cop Killer” in 1992.

In the Geto Boys’ “Crooked Officer” from 1993, the Houston rap group bears witness to racial profiling and police violence in the so-called Dirty South, before asserting: “Mr. Officer, crooked officer, I wanna put your ass in a coffin, sir.” In the same year, New York’s KRS-One referenced the racist origins of American policing in “Sound of da Police,” connecting the violent tactics used against enslaved Africans to the NYPD of the late 20th century and referring to an officer as a “wicked overseer.”

Minneapolis goddam?

As a cultural historian who studies connections between race and music, I know that the rich history of protest in Black American music started much earlier than hip-hop. The tradition is as old as Southern blues and continued through jazz and rhythm and blues.

Take, for example, the “Joe Turner Blues,” a song that likely originated in the late 1800s. According to folklorist Alan Lomax, Black residents of the Mississippi Delta used the earliest versions of the song to describe a white sheriff named Joe Turner who sent Black men to chain gangs or to work on building levees.

The lyrics recount a lover’s tale of loss: “They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone. Got my man and gone.” References to police officers in songs like “Joe Turner Blues” also link that tradition to the songs of enslaved Africans who warned about the slave patrols who combed the South in search of runaways.

As with hip-hop, protest against law enforcement came from communities of color in different parts of the country.

From east Texas, blues musician Texas Alexander describes false accusations of murder and forgery in “Levee Camp Moan Blues.” He laments, “They accused me of forgery; I can’t even write my name” – a statement that indicts both the segregated public school system of Texas and corrupt law enforcement officials.

Soul rebels

In the 1950s and 1960s, jazz musicians contributed to the emerging civil rights canon through songs like Charles Mingus’ “Original Faubus Fables” and Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam.”

Black musicians also made direct references to racial profiling and police brutality. Marvin Gaye tackled police violence on his 1971 album, “What’s Going On.” “Trigger happy policing” is one of the many social problems mentioned in “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler),” and he demands, “don’t punish me with brutality” on the album’s title track.

Protesters also co-opted seemingly nonpolitical Motown songs as part of their struggle against police brutality. As uprisings against violent police tactics erupted in places like Watts, Detroit and Newark between 1965 and 1967, “Dancing in the Street” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas became part of the soundtrack for urban protest.

Expressing anti-police sentiment in song is not exclusive to the Black American experience. Texans of Mexican descent have detailed their run-ins with law enforcement in Spanish for centuries through Southwestern corridos – narrative ballad songs.

Like much of the blues played by Black Americans, the corridos that emanated from the Rio Grande Valley in the 19th and early 20th century often described conflicts between Anglo-American law enforcement and Mexican Americans. “El corrido de Gregorio Cortez” recounts an actual event from 1901, when an Anglo-Anerican sheriff shot a man named Romaldo Cortez. His brother Gregorio then shot and killed the sheriff before eluding the Texas Rangers for 10 days.

Gregorio is celebrated as a hero who resisted Anglo-American domination: “They had a shootout and he killed another sheriff. Gregorio Cortez said with his pistol in his hand, ‘Don’t run you cowardly Rangers, from one lone Mexican.’”

New protest songs

Whether emanating from blues or corridos, Mexican and Black American music protested the ways that police buttressed white political, economic and social power. Similarly today, Latino activists point to shared concerns over race and law enforcement in their support for Black Lives Matter.

Meanwhile, recording artists are continuing the tradition of using music to protest police violence in communities of colour. Los Angeles rapper YG released a single called “FTP” on June 4, in a nod to N.W.A.‘s “F— tha Police.” And hip-hop producer Terrace Martin likewise dropped a track, “Pig Feet” commenting on the current unrest: “Helicopters over my balcony. If the police can’t harass, they wanna smoke every ounce of me.”

Tyina Steptoe, Associate Professor of History, University of Arizona

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How a James Brown Jam Session Gave Us the ‘Greatest Drum Break of Them All’

Clyde Stubblefield’s drumming has been sampled or imitated more than 1,000 times since it was recorded in 1970.

James Brown released a seven-inch single called Funky Drummer in March, 1970 – a loosely arranged jam session showcasing the talent for improvisation of drummer Clyde Stubblefield, who was employed in Brown’s band at the time.

Although it failed to crack the top 50 pop charts on release, Funky Drummer was rediscovered in the 1980s by a generation of pioneering hip-hop artists. These have included Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Flash, Eric B. & Rakim, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys – who all sampled Stubblefield’s infectious drum break. The Funky Drummer breakbeat soon spread far beyond hip-hop, appearing on well over 1,000 recordings by pop artists ranging from George Michael and Sinead O’Connor in the 1990s right up to Emeli Sandé and Ed Sheeran in the past decade.

Funky Drummer is one of the most sampled drum breaks of all time – and also one of the most discussed (including in my new book, Kick It: A Social History of the Drum Kit). It’s also a prime example of how copyright law has historically failed to compensate drummers. Stubblefield famously never received any royalties from all the hits his drum break was used on.

James Brown typically paid his musicians on a “work-for-hire” basis for recording sessions, and generally credited himself as the sole author of the resulting songs. This was the case even if the music was largely improvised, as in the case of Funky Drummer. It was also in keeping with copyright law conventions at the time, which usually recognised the legal author of a musical composition as the person who wrote the topline melody and lyrics.

Anchor for a new sound

Funky Drummer has various musical elements: simple repeating horn and guitar riffs, a syncopated wandering bass line, occasional instrumental solos on organ and saxophone, as well as vocal improvisations by Brown. We also hear Stubblefield’s performance underpinning the jam session, including the glorious moment when Brown orders the band to drop out while Stubblefield keeps drumming his highly inventive groove unaccompanied – the isolated drum “break” that hip-hop artists love to sample.

But Brown would have deemed all the above musical elements as insignificant compared to his own role as the artistic leader and frontman – this wasn’t necessarily fair, but neither was it uncommon. Ringo Starr did not receive co-writing credits for his drumming contributions on Beatles songs, for example, even though his drum parts have often been retrospectively deemed by musical peers to constitute a distinct compositional element of the band’s work.

Five decades on, in a pop soundscape utterly transformed by hip-hop culture, we now tend to recognise just how important a compelling drum beat is in making a chart hit. Most commercially successful music in the 21st century is anchored by the sounds of the kick drum, snare and cymbals (or electronic percussion serving similar functions). You can now point to plenty of contemporary chart hits that don’t feature an electric guitar, but there are almost none that don’t prominently feature a beat between kick and snare – whether acoustic, sampled or synthesised.

In the hit factories of the present day, the most successful pop artists often bring in producers who have gained reputations by creating alluring beats. They often receive a formal share in songwriting credits as “co-writers” and “producers”.

We also live in an era when it is increasingly expensive to gain legal permission to sample drum breaks from rights holders (usually songwriters and/or record companies, as opposed to drummers). This has led to a relatively hidden ancillary industry of “sample replay” companies that are hired to painstakingly rerecord well-known drum breaks (and other parts from guitar riffs to vocal samples). These are designed to resemble the original recordings as much as possible.

The rights to these copycat recordings are then bought wholesale and sampled instead of the originals (at least by the handful of pop stars with deep enough pockets to afford such tactics).

Musical value

One drummer making a living from sample replay is Dylan Wissing, an American session musician who has re-recorded impeccable covers of famous drum breaks for the likes of Jay-Z, Kanye West, Drake, Eminem, Rick Ross, John Legend and Alicia Keys. Wissing also runs a website, Getting The Sound, which offers tutorials on how to “digitally recreate famous breakbeats” resulting in “a new recording of an existing audio recording that is sonically indistinguishable from the original”.

Unsurprisingly, one such tutorial demonstrates how to reproduce Funky Drummer – “from choosing the instruments, tuning, muffling, and performance to miking the kit, treating the room and recording the drums for this iconic breakbeat masterpiece.”

The sample replay industry relies on the premise that a particular performance of a work cannot in itself be subject to copyright. Yet part of the legacy of Funky Drummer is the discourse and debate it has generated on exactly this point: everyone seems to agree that Stubblefield was not fairly remunerated for his creativity. But what would be the implications for musical culture if music copyright legislation was changed in his favour?

Drumming performances are generally considered not to be musical compositions – and this is both a good thing and a bad thing. If every element of musical creation was locked down as a form of intellectual property – from a standard blues chord progression (upon which most blues songs are constructed) to a swinging ride cymbal pattern (the underlying rhythmic pulse upon which countless jazz compositions were built from the 1940s onwards) – we might conceivably be left with no freely available musical building blocks to make new compositions.

It’s a good thing that musicians can borrow, repurpose and build upon previous musical ideas without the fear of getting sued – that’s how new music gets made. But Funky Drummer raises a crucial question: where do we draw the line between a generic part and an original musical composition? This is the tension that Funky Drummer brings sharply into focus, and it is at the heart of understanding how we make sense of musical creativity.

Matt Brennan, Reader in Popular Music, University of Glasgow

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Manu Dibango: Afropolitan Musical Genius With a Giant Heart

Emmanuel N’Djoké Dibango – Manu Dibango – will live forever thanks to his Afropolitan sounds, and to the fact that many artists in Africa and beyond are deeply indebted to him.

He was a man of legendary generosity of spirit and talent, with an accommodating heart that sought to bridge the local and the global with creativity and innovation in song and music. His album Soul Makossa was of such artistic genius that even a global superstar like Michael Jackson couldn’t resist sampling from it to enrich his own album, Thriller.

In his 1994 biography, Dibango describes himself as “Négropolitain”. It’s a term that would later be adopted and popularised as “Afropolitanism” by others enthralled by his idea of grounded cosmopolitanism. He coined the term to capture his identity as Afro-European or African and European at one and the same time.

He saw himself – and insisted on being seen – as “a man between two cultures, two environments”. His music could not be confined to either, without losing its complexity and richness. It was the fruit of his diverse influences. His nimble fingers, voice and intellect were averse to any artificial barriers or attempts to contain the flow of the river of musical humanity.

Three kilos of coffee

Born on December 12 in 1933 in Douala, Cameroon, Dibango was sent by his parents to study in France when he was only 15 years old. He arrived in France bearing a gift of three kilograms of coffee from his parents, for his host.

In France he met Francis Bebey, another musician from his native Douala, with whom he formed a band and began to experiment with different modern instruments, such as the piano and the saxophone. He later relocated to Brussels where he met his wife to be, Marie-Josée (whom he would fondly call Coco). It was also in Brussels that his music career began to blossom through fruitful contacts. Two in particular stand out: Joseph Kabasélé and African Jazz, who introduced him to “the cha-cha and the rumba, the two breasts nourishing Zairean music”, and who, in 1961, also invited him to Zaïre (today’s Democratic Republic of Congo). The result was his first record, African Soul, “a mixture of jazz, popular music, and rumba”.

Photo: Facebook- ManuDibangoOfficiel

Dibango’s life was exemplary in its resilience, combativeness and ingenuity in mobilising his creativity to contain or at least confront political and cultural repression. His music brought him worldwide fame. But he did not feel particularly fulfilled in the land of his birth.

He spent the best part of his life in a determined struggle to win recognition for music as art and musicians as artists in his motherland and elsewhere in Africa. These were contexts of strongman politics, personality cults and repeated frustrations by politicians, sometimes in cassock. Notwithstanding censorship, jealousy, penury, and repeated frustration and disappointment as an artist, Dibango refused to be deterred.

Leaving Cameroon

He returned to Cameroon from Zaïre in 1963, issuing the album Nasengina. This was his only piece constructed purely from the indigenous Cameroonian makossa.

Dibango was appreciated by ordinary Cameroonians. But he hated the fact that politicians kept his artistic creativity under close surveillance. He was disenchanted with authorities that did not allow people “to fantasise” and “to dream”, and who forced everyone to talk “in cautious whispers” and to be “wary of everyone else”.

In 1964, disappointed in “this harmful atmosphere”, Dibango closed down his club and abandoned all dreams of opening a musical conservatory or arts institute. He left Cameroon for France after barely 16 months back home.

Still, he could not bring himself to give up on Cameroon entirely. He would pay brief return visits from the early 1980s onwards. His desire “to forge a unified image of Cameroon, representing all the musical currents in the country” received rare facilitation from the Minister of Culture who happened to be his friend, and resulted in a three-record set, Fleurs Musicales du Cameroun.

But his desire to project himself as “this famous Cameroonian musician heard everywhere but in Cameroon” would be met with the same contradictions, making the air “unbreathable” in what he described as his “last African adventure”.

He felt cursed that he “couldn’t create something here in Cameroon”. He found it ironic that Côte d’Ivoire, with the blessing of then President Houphouët-Boigny, could entrust him with the task of heading the Orchestre de la Radio-Télévision Ivoirienne, while Cameroon could not even take seriously his expertise as a professional musician of world renown.

Together with other expatriate African musical talents in France, Dibango released Tam-Tam pour l’Ethiopie, to raise funds for famine-stricken Ethiopia between 1983 and 1985. The initiative served as “proof that Africans too could take concrete action” vis-à-vis their own predicaments. And he personally took the proceeds from the album to refugee camps in Ethiopia to ensure that

‘For once, the money wouldn’t be misused by the government in power’.

Although the situation has improved significantly since publication of his biography in 1994, Dibango’s music is still much more appreciated abroad – as “world music” – than in Cameroon.

Despite the government’s attempts to impose creative inertia upon him in the early 1960s, Dibango was given the honour of composing the theme song of the 1972 Africa Cup of Nations football finals hosted by Cameroon. In 1988, he received a decoration as a Knight of Order and of Valour. However, as Dibango observed, “the authorities could decorate me with all the medals they liked” without doing much to stop “the descent into hell” for artistic creativity in a country where it is not uncommon to mobilise the military to raid clubs. Or to impose entertainment taxes with the intention of crippling artists who are perceived to be critical or unpalatable.

Manu Dibango died after contracting COVID-19 at the age of 86 in Paris, where he felt “condemned to be an expatriate”.

Quibble as they may in Cameroon, Dibango leaves behind a towering record of Afropolitan musical genius of truly global magnitude, to feed and inspire many a generation to come. Manu Dibango does not have to be in Cameroon, in Africa or physically in the world to continue to do things of relevance.

Francis Nyamnjoh, professor, social anthropology, University of Cape Town

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Afro-Jazz Pioneer Manu Dibango Dies From Coronavirus in France

Dibango was outspoken in the fight against music pirating on his home continent, especially since many African musicians have been denied royalties.

Dibango is one of the first worldwide stars to die as a result of COVID-19. The Cameroonian saxophonist and singer blazed a trail for the distinctive funk/soul and jazz sound of his homeland to find global audiences.

Cameroonian singer and saxophonist Manu Dibango has died from a coronavirus infection, according to a message on his official Facebook page on Tuesday.

“It is with deep sadness that we announce the loss of Manu Dibango, our Papy Groove, who passed away on 24th of March 2020, at 86 years old, further to Covid 19,” it said.

Also read: In Times of Quarantine, Let Pankaj Kapur’s Debut Novella Be Your Literary Valentine

“His funeral service will be held in strict privacy, and a tribute to his memory will be organized when possible,” the message added.

Dibango’s music publisher Thierry Durepaire also confirmed the Cameroonian’s death. “He died early this morning in a hospital in the Paris region,” Durepaire said.

Worldwide hit: ‘Soul Makossa’

The veteran afro-jazz star did much to popularize the urban music of Cameroon that is better known as “makossa” (which means dancing), especially through his 1973 global funk-soul hit Soul Makossa.

The song was the B-side of Hymne de la 8e Coupe d’Afrique des Nations, a song that celebrated the Cameroon national football team’s appearance in the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament. “Soul Makossa” was later picked up and popularized by New York DJs.

A virtuoso on the saxophone, vibraphone and piano, Dibango was a regular in Germany and last performed at the Africa Würzburg Festival in 2018.

In 2009, he accused Michael Jackson of borrowing one of his hooks for two songs on the legendary Thriller album. Jackson settled out of court.

Cameroonian Jazz Legend and Saxophonist, Manu Dibango has died of coronavirus.

His 1972 hit, Soul Makossa, which peaked at no. 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 was famously sampled by Michael Jackson on “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin.'” pic.twitter.com/4iPEYonc3L

— Africa Facts Zone (@AfricaFactsZone) March 24, 2020

Dibango was outspoken in the fight against music pirating on his home continent, especially since many African musicians have been denied royalties.

“That is a big problem for artists,” the saxophonist told DW in 2018. “At some point, someone will have to pay. Who is paying the price? Right now it’s the artists.”

The article was originally published on DW. You can read it here.