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By now just about everyone has heard the news that Dan Federici lost his battle with cancer yesterday. For those who might not be aware what all the fuss is about, here's the first part of Kitty's Back from the 1975 Hammersmith, Odeon show in London.
Or, imagine what this would be like without Federici's organ setting the opening grace note:
Springsteen called him Phantom Dan. At times, it was hard to know he was even there. But the music wouldn't have been the same without him.
Wow, has it really been nearly a month since I've posted? Time flies when you're head down in work, which, for the record, I still am. I've just had to come for a bit of air, and ran across this YT video featuring Oscar Pettiford.
The recording ban from 1942 to 1944 that was engineered by then head of the American Federation of Musicians union, and trumpeter, James Petrillo, couldn't have come at a worse time in the history of jazz. Just as be bop was in its infancy, we have this black hole that is rather difficult to penetrate when it comes to hearing how the music evolved.
We do know, however, that one of the first, if not the first, be bop combos to be playing on 52nd Street was Dizzy Gillespie's band that played at the Onyx Club. Oscar Pettiford played a pivotal role in that band.
And, while it would be nice to hear the parallel evolution in Oscar Pettiford's playing, we also know that his primary contribution to the instrument was to break out of the mold wherein the bass player remained confined to marking the chord changes by hitting the root note of each chord at each transition. Pettiford brought a more lyrical style to the bass, and made it more of an equal instrument in the band.
Whenever I hear a bass player, whether it's Allen Woody with the Allman Brothers and Gov't Mule, or Bootsy Collins, or anyone else, playing a more active role in the development of a song's melody and harmony, I think back to what Oscar Pettiford did.
You can hear some of Pettiford's style in this recording of from the 1955 album Basically Duke. You can check out the YT video link for the personnel, but Joe Wilder and Clark Terry are some names that people should recognize.
Comments
Nice post. Your observations and comments serve as a great introduction. And that is one sweet bass.
Our man, DMDM , said this, and, for some reason, I though of Joni Mitchell's Free Man in Paris. I have no idea if this is the right kind of medicine, but the song has that rather soothing effect on me.
One of the more fascinating aspects of Joni Mitchell's music is the ambiguity of the chords she uses. In music, a chord is defined by its root note, so an ambiguous chord is one that's equally amenable to one or more root notes.
Bass players find it difficult to play with her, because it's not clear how they should work from chord to chord. Bass players focus on the root notes, and when the whole point of the music is to remain ambiguous, how do you find a bass line that preserves that ambiguity?
Few bass players navigated this ambiguity better than Jaco Pastorious. Charlie Mingus, of course, exhibits similar dexterity, and, had he not passed away during the recording of Mingus, that album might have turned out to have been one of Joni Mitchell's best.
Whatever the twists of history, we still have this video, which, among other things (e.g. Michael Brecker on sax, Lyle Mays on keyboards, Don Alias on drums and Pat Metheny on guitar), Jaco deftly navigating this ambiguity in Mitchell's music. The DVD is Shadows and Light, which was record back in 1979 as one of the first HBO music specials.
Comments
Thank you friend. Joni certainly is on the menu when I look for "comfort food music".
I had never seen this, nor had I heard this version.
Micheal Brecker sure deserves a shout-out and a "atta-boy". That sax soothes and excites simultaneously.
And Yes, Jaco acquits himself well.
The video's down. Bummer. Love this song, assume the clip is live, will now try to track it down at the source. Thanks.
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Your points are well made.
But I have a question for you....Where you been?
I've been working. If you go back to my first MOG post, there's a link to my work blog, so it's not hard to figure out who I am and what I do. The nature of the job is such that, from time to time, I have periods of very intense, focused effort where most of the rest of my life gets put on hold for a while.
The current stretch is almost done, but not quite. As a matter of fact, the only reason I'm not head-down fixing bugs right now is that the power is shut down in my building at work while the facilities folks do some broad electrical maintenance.
Despite the occasional pressures, or perhaps even because of them, I love my job. It's why I still do it. If someone didn't pay me to do this, I'd probably still do it in my spare time at home. So, don't be at all concerned. We'll ship this release, and I'll move on to the next thing. Life will get easier for a while, and then it will get intense again for a while--the cycle of a software developer's life.
I must say, not being a Springsteen fan, I DIDN 'T know he was there. Clarence, Patty, Nils, Little Steven, Max? Of course. Never heard of this guy until he died. NOW you tell me...