[bigshot]

It's perfectly possible to discuss music and art without going crazy. People do it all the time. I do it every single day! There's no point just posting a link to something you "like" for no other reason than it appeals to you. That is just hoping that someone randomly clicks on it who happens to "like" it too. I don't click on things randomly because I don't want to see random things. I want some context and thought and information to be shared along with the link. When I asked for examples of good binaural recordings, I got several random youtube links dumped on me, some of which weren't even binaural. No attempt to provide context to why these recordings were good examples, how they were recorded or even information on the performers and venues... just a bald link of a random video.

If folks just want to share links and not have to explain them or read other people's opinions of them, that's fine. Just pass by my questions and comments and ignore them. I'm looking for something different-- back and forth discussion. I've gotten some good information from you so far Steve999. I pay attention to your posts here. You nailed the key figures of funk and I'm still following those breadcrumbs. That's the kind of thing I am here for.

 

[castleofargh]

I'm not against opinions, or appreciation of technical skills. I'm against insulting people. because of forum rules and stuff. when Red posts something he likes, respects, or both. commenting on the brain of people listening to that is not a technical or artistic analysis. it's an insult and that's what I don't want to see. I don't believe it's too much to ask.



other than that, I've had peanut butter for the first time last month and I have no clue what is supposed to go with it. I only know that I'm not rushing to get more after it tried to choke me to death. I don't like my food fighting back.

 

[bigshot]

I didn't mean to comment on any poster. I'm commenting on the content of music. The music has nothing in it to attach a thought or idea to. It's mindless. The sort of thing you go to sleep to. The same sort of thing as that drifty new age stuff or underwater Enya music.

Peanut butter goes good with jelly or honey. Elvis liked it with bananas.

 

[proedros]

What are some real revolutionary disco music?

can you define revolutionary ? disco music was more about feeling the groove/having a good time - it wasn't like say King Crimson, playing in weird times

i went through a heavy funk/disco phase last 2-3 years and made this FB page where i posted such music from mid-late 70s/ early 80s (which is when disco/funk peaked)

i think i have good taste and these are nice tunes/albums not plastic/crappy ones , so try some and let me know if you found any to your liking

will be back with some more recommendations later it's 3 am here and i am almost asleep

https://www.facebook.com/one.nation.under.one.groove

cheers

 

[Whazzzup]

Funk is just fun yet serious as well. It’s serious fun, but you got to have a stank face while playing, listening or swaying to it.



Granted it’s the root to everything, disco, spinning wheels go round and round.



To popular music, prince, was a funk rock god.

 

[castleofargh]

can you define revolutionary ? disco music was more about feeling the groove/having a good time - it wasn't like say King Crimson, playing in weird times

i went through a heavy funk/disco phase last 2-3 years and made this FB page where i posted such music from mid-late 70s/ early 80s (which is when disco/funk peaked)

i think i have good taste and these are nice tunes/albums not plastic/****ty ones , so try some and let me know if you found any to your liking

will be back with some more recommendations later it's 3 am here and i am almost asleep

https://www.facebook.com/one.nation.under.one.groove

cheers

is this the biography of your disco years?

(for those who didn't read the book or watched the movie, while stranded on Mars for a few years he only has another astronaut's massive disco playlist to listen to. it's a running gag in the book).

more seriously, the simple fact that most of us still know all the hits of the disco era is IMO, a pretty strong argument in favor of calling disco a musical success.

 

[Steve999]

Here's a cut I always loved. Not revolutionary but tight horns, real drums, cool use of the synth, great attitude in the singing, and an unforgettable and unique groove, along with Johnny "Guitar" Watson's crazy-simple guitar riff with a nicer solos near the beginning and end. But this was nowhere near what he could do with a guitar or a keyboard, but he was focused on the music he was playing, not what he could do on his instruments. You can see from the credits he probably played three or four or five instruments on this (depending on how you count). He did the low-end synthesizer work, which took the place of the bass, and the keyboard synthesizer work. This was about his third remake of himself as a musician to stay with the times, and certainly not the height of his practice of his craft during his 40-year recording career, but it was the height of his commercial success and there was a lot of depth underlying the serious message and the pure silliness. This wikipedia entry is very well worth reading rather than you taking my word for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_"Guitar"_Watson

 

[natemact]

I believe you guys should know this one..

 

[proedros]

nice to see people post Con Funk Shun and Guitar Watson

like i said , i went on a huge searching funk/disco hunt last 2-3 years and there is so much great music once you start searching (and bless Net and all those private music trackers with so many music to get)

Disco is much more than YMCA , it's black music you can dance to and feel at well

were there garbage ? sure , but this is the case with every music genre

i also saw someone post some Ohio Players , another dynamite funk act from the best era for music (the 70s)

 

[bigshot]

Johnny Guitar Watson was a god. He did a song called Space Guitar that was simultaneously funny, kaleidoscopic and incredibly well conceived and imaginatively played. He was Frank Zappa's idol.

 

[Steve999]

Johnny Guitar Watson was a god. He did a song called Space Guitar that was simultaneously funny, kaleidoscopic and incredibly well conceived and imaginatively played. He was Frank Zappa's idol.

Space Guitar was 20 years ahead of its time. This is a fun live performance of another one of his songs a little later in his life, great to see it on YouTube. I think there are so many facets to him that I'd have a hard time getting my mind around everything he did in his career. I think he was a strong influence for some really great musicians, and was Chuck Berry before Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix before Jimi Hendrix, etc. So here is one little additional slice of his career.

 

[GearMe]

Feel free to apply criteria and judge music yourself. The best way to learn about music is to think about it. And the best way to think about it is to talk with other people about what is and isn't good. You can feel free to criticize music I think is good. Explain to me why you don't think it's good. I'll learn.

Music can be discussed analytically just like science can. You don't get mad if the experiment doesn't go the way you want it to. You gather evidence and come up with a hypothesis to explain it.

It's perfectly possible to discuss music and art without going crazy. People do it all the time. I do it every single day! There's no point just posting a link to something you "like" for no other reason than it appeals to you. That is just hoping that someone randomly clicks on it who happens to "like" it too. I don't click on things randomly because I don't want to see random things. I want some context and thought and information to be shared along with the link. When I asked for examples of good binaural recordings, I got several random youtube links dumped on me, some of which weren't even binaural. No attempt to provide context to why these recordings were good examples, how they were recorded or even information on the performers and venues... just a bald link of a random video.

If folks just want to share links and not have to explain them or read other people's opinions of them, that's fine. Just pass by my questions and comments and ignore them. I'm looking for something different-- back and forth discussion. I've gotten some good information from you so far Steve999. I pay attention to your posts here. You nailed the key figures of funk and I'm still following those breadcrumbs. That's the kind of thing I am here for.

Hmmm...so reflecting on this back and forth discussion, I thought why not put it in context of the OP which features a cover of Blackbird by Lincoln Mayorga and Distinguished Colleagues.

Let me be the first to say that I owned many Sheffield Labs DtoD albums (including two from Mayorga and others by Dave Grusin, Thelma Houston, Harry James...actually liked the James stuff for the most part). They were well-recorded...and...they were well recorded...and gosh darn it...they were well recorded. Back then, I was an audiophile. Now, I'm a musicphile...

To each his own! That's what makes music such a great art -- one person's ABBA is another person's SRV

In honor of the diversity that allows each of us to enjoy as only we can...

Head-boppin', foot-tappin' (my context & thought )




Sublime....




Will refrain from descriptors as this is a PG13 site




A.D.M




Mindless Synth Noodle stuff




apply criteria and judge music yourself...

 

[Steve999]

Bye Bye Blackbird.

Always love your music posts, @GearMe I did listen to all of your cuts above. It was cool, loved it, but. . . bye bye blackbird.

From the cuts you posted, I really truly like them all, but this Zac Brown guy needs to calm the hell down. I really wasn't too fond of the Crosby, Stills and Nash version. The guitar got in the way for me, it was technically really mediocre (I just took another listen, it's just plain bad), and they were running the guitar through some kind of garbage flanger or something, which cut against the song feeling, and I didn't see the points to the high notes in the singing. Of course Casandra Wilson is great, but I don't think she got the most out of the song. I thought it was on the weaker side of her performances. I have one Sheffield Labs direct to disk LP, the Dave Grusin one, and as far as the one you posted, I felt the same way about the Dave Grusin one--yeah, it was well recorded, and, as you say, it was well recorded, and the less said after that the better. As far as the Al Dimeola, yes, he's among the greats, but that fell a little flat for me and his take on it wasn't anything special to me.

So my favorite was. . . the mindless synth noodling! This will show a huge blind spot in my musical tastes, but I know nothing about Rick Wakeman, but will google him right after this. To me he got the best emotion out of the song, transformed it harmonically, I believe he ended in a minor key, didn't try to do too much with it but still took us to a lot of new places, and just a really nice feeling. Wasn't showing off what he could do with his instrument, was focused on the song. Nice intro, that was a nice touch, starts out pretty, takes you to a dark place, and then into the joy of the tune. But it is in some ways a tune with a dark setting, a bird with broken wings and sunken eyes (metaphorically) trying to get to a good place again. Really nice motion in the bass lines. Nice use of space and silence and counterpoint here and there. Very musical grace notes and tremelo. Extraordinary use of rubato. So that was my favorite by far. And for the phrase "blackbird fly into the light of the dark black night" at the end he takes that to a creatively different place, I picture the blackbird jumping from somewhere and falling and flying up a little and falling and flying up a little and falling and then getting his bearings and flying off serenely and maybe a little sadly into the night's darkness in the end. But maybe that's just me. To me he really did the most with the song in terms of musicality and musical expressive techniques and originality and harmony and emotion and in a short amount of time too--the same amount of time it took the Beatles!--I just checked--and to me for this particular song the Beatles version is still the gold standard (and I am more than happy to make fun of the Beatles when it is warranted). But to me this Rick Wakeman version is great. I just googled him real quick and I see he was a member of @bigshot's nemesis Yes so I am in trouble now!

Anyway, bye bye blackbird. I found this cut in an LP in the cut out bin (corner of cardboard cut off) in a department store and fell in love with it right away. Two buck or 99 cents, I forget. The LP jacket was a really tacky flimsy gold color and the vinyl was really thin. I got some really good Charlie Parker in the cut out bins as well. Anyway, at the time I thought it was a throw-away song and track that I happened to fall in love with right away. It was the first time I had heard the song. But decades hence here is the track with much better mastering on Youtube:



And Dexter Gordon would always say you should know the words to the song you are playing (and I think by extension listening to) so this helps:



It can also help to follow along with the written music:



And in my mind if he played it and you haven't heard a Red Garland rendition of a song you haven't heard the song (just by listening he's obviously on the Miles Davis cut above too):



And for a much more modern take, with modern influences in the singing and extended scat singing:



And the one I think may appeal the most to the younger or more modern listeners or those not steeped in jazz, this has more modern influences and is a little more out there:

 

[castleofargh]

vs


starts around 1mn10

what criteria should I pick here? I love the first one but it's not exactly high skill performance or profound stuff. the second one has famous interprets and is a true classic so I guess that would count a lot for some people, but I really can't say that I like it or even find it good.
plus there is the difficult question of cat vs dog. I'm presenting controversial stuff right there.








round 2

this noob with the lazy score

vs


this big boy with one finger

what criteria are supposed to matter? I can't help but feel like I would have to put myself into a corner of what music really is and make up quality criteria on my own for that small area with very limited diversity. like how when people discuss "good music" they can't seem to help but post mainly acoustic stuff. as if it is shameful to like non acoustic music despite of how non acoustic stuff is now most of the music sold. I always get a sense of snobbery coming with the job of defining good sound. often the main order of things seems to be about making sure we don't praise what the normies like.
am I wrong about that?

 

[Steve999]

@castleofargh ,To me you take what you know and you figure out why you like it or you don't. You don't apply criteria and then select what you like or don't like based on that. If you know more about music, or you have played an instrument, you can pick it apart a little better. Listen closely, listen many times, listen to the different parts, if you like it enough to do that. As you learn more about what you like your horizons will very likely broaden a lot. Different genres definitely require different baseline skill levels but that doesn't mean you have to like the genre with the highest skill level. Some people just find classical music boring and that's that. I don't, but I could go musically into why I think that's the case, I think there really is something to it. To me many times what a person does with what he has beats what someone with superior skill does with what they have even with the same music. Hope that helps a little. Here's a good example, from musicians without the highest skill level around. In fact some of their musical peers reveled in their superior technical skill level. But the joke was on them.

Original LP version presented in some kind of lo-fi confusing way, I believe twice through:

https://www.mojvideo.com/video-the-beatles-blackbird/e0705461287f5bf3d216

The best I could find on Youtube are these rehearsal takes (the problem is you don't get the vocal accompaniment or the birds chirping or the steady beat in the background--those were the kinds of touches that made the Beatles the Beatles):

[As a matter of fact I deleted these because they fall so flat compared to the LP version.]