Archive for April, 2011
Whipping Post
The Allman Brothers Band is one of the all-time great groups. What an incredibly gifted bunch of musicians they were. And, of course, beset by death, tragedy and other adversities.
Recently, Bob Leftsetz posted a link on his blog to a great video of the Allman Brothers Band, recorded in 1970. The tune they perform on this video is “Whipping Post” — a great jam tune with both jazz and rock influences.
Although I am arguably 40 years behind the times here, this is very much the type of feel I am going for with my current work. So, I had to take a crack at it. Again, it is a strict quartet: Guitar, bass, keys and drums — where I play the bass and guitar parts and program the others. Actually for this tune I played some of the keyboard parts as well — including the organ solo.
Please don’t hold me to a Duane Allman standard — I will never be there no matter how long I try. But I hope my version does justice to his memory.
[audio http://home.comcast.net/%7Edrahcir.nilknarf/music/fusion/whippingpost.mp3]
Turn Around
This is a tune I originally wrote about 5 years ago. I released a much more heavily produced and more smooth-jazzy version on my album A Step Along the Way.
This arrangement and recording is similar, but has a rock guitar lead sound, and overall a more muscular approach, especially in the drum part. It also has fewer tracks, again being arranged for a quartet of guitar, bass, keys and drums. As always, I played the guitar and bass and programmed the keyboard and drum parts.
Maiden Voyage
The other day, for some reason, it occurred to me that this great Herbie Hancock classic would work in a jazz-rock fusion setting such as I have been doing lately. So here it is:
Seven Eves
Sometimes the urge to write asserts itself even when there really isn’t time. So I had to make some time for this tune over this weekend.
It’s called “Seven Eves” — yes, another palindrome name. I’m not sure what best describes the style — the the feel of the head is a samba and the solo section is swing.
Again, this is a guitar, bass, keys, drums quartet with me playing the guitar and bass parts — and no overdubbing or impossible to actually play things going on in the programmed parts.
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