down tempo and up beat shit
I have not been around in a while due to the fact that school, work and play are kicking my ass. It's break now (albeit break is almost over) so time to cut loose! Here is what has been getting me through this funk that I've got going on:
Two Can Win - J Dilla
This man has been my idol ever since I heard the beats for The Pharcyde’s album Labcabincalifornia. When talking about a “Beat” theme, having Jay Dee in the mix is pretty essential to me. Hands down, Jay Dee is the beat master. There is so much depth to his music and the music that he produces. Simply stated: what could reveal Dilla's genius more? Soulful, innovative, jazzy, eclectic, beautiful ... these are the kinds of things that even the most surface-level listen of Donuts will immediately evoke. What is interesting is that Jay Dee, a producer known for chopping breaks in the most imaginative, and thus unrecognizable ways, here leaves them longer, less hidden, giving Donuts a kind of raw, un-cut feel. From one song to the next, you never really know what to expect from this album. An image of what was, and what could have been, Donuts contains some wonderful, yet seemingly incomplete, work. We can only speculate as to how great this album would have been had he been healthy. May he rest in peace. He was one of the men that brought back old school r&b, soul and jazz sounds back to mainstream hip hop. Thankfully it caught on and the public ran with it.
Buy
Once Again - Girl Talk
Girl Talk juxtaposes completely different types of music, and it’s wonderful. A wonderful mash up artist, GT has no boundaries or limits to what he samples for his songs. One of my favorites in this track is when he mashes The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” with The Ying Yang Twins “Wait (Whisper Song).” The tracks manage to convey two ideas at once, and just as often, two truths about the same idea, as when the a 1970's chorus of "I love youuuu..." is matched with the 90's hip hop chant, "we want some pu**y..." This album will definitely keep a party rocking.
Buy
Tribute to J Dilla - Liquid Crystal Project
Though a bit low tempo, this is just a good beat and has a good groove to it. Again, this album is an amazing mix of Jazz and Hip Hop, paying tribute to one of the masters of this, J Dilla. The beat is very infectious and I can’t seem to keep my head still while listening to it. I would suggest this song on a long drive to no where.
Buy
Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) - Marvin Gaye
Listen really closely to the bass line. Aside from the fact that yes, Marvin is amazing, lyrically the song is amazing and the song in itself is very true to the social circumstances of its time, my favorite part of “Inner City Blues” is the wonderful bass line. I love, love, love the duet between Gaye’s singing and the bass line at 3:23.
Buy
Triptych Part 1 - Blockhead
This is one of my favorite albums from the Ninja Tunes label. Blockhead has produced great work when he was collaborating with underground MC Aesop Rock. Now it's his time to shine. Put out in 2004, "Music by Cavelight" is still one of my favorite down tempo albums. To those who are new to the name, Blockhead sounds like RJD2, DJ Shadow mixed with some Bonobo (without the ethnic sampling). "Triptych Part 1" is one of my favorite songs off of this album. The song in itself is incredibly simple. There is a very mellow piano melody throughout, but what Blockhead does is he samples "There is no Greater Love" by Billie Holiday and repeats the line over and over. This creates a really good hook, but also something that is quite haunting yet romantic at the same time.
.
Buy
Cousin Mary - John Coltrane
. Giant Steps, I think is a good middle ground of Coltrane’s albums. You hear him pushing his solos more and playing faster and with more virtuosity when you compare this album to “My Favorite Things.” However, I think it’s more acceptable for those who can’t really relate to his later free jazz work in A Love Supreme. The first few measures of “Cousin Mary” hook me into it. Tommy Flanagan swings on the piano in this piece and it’s absolutely refreshing and Jimmy Cob holds down on the drums. “Cousin Mary" keeps the energy going strong with a powerful bluesy progression at its core, while giving the brilliant rhythm section a chance to shine during Coltrane's reprieves
Buy
Can I get a Witness - Marvin Gaye
This song brings back some really good memories for me and in general makes me want to dance. In my family, we usually bonded around music. My mom first taught me how to play piano when I was like 7. Although I was trained in mostly classical music, to make the lessons fun, my mother would pick one soul/jazz/r&b song that I would learn. One of the songs was “Can I Get a Witness” from Marvin Gaye. The chord progression is so simple, but being able to play it on the piano while my mother and I sang along made the music all the more personal to me. I think doing this influenced the music that I love to listen to and play today.
Buy
Move on Up - Curtis Mayfield
Kanye sample this song in “Touch the Sky.” It’s the original Curtis. It’s funk. Really, need I say any more?
Buy
Accordian - Madvillian
This cut sounds so raw to me. At a time when hip-hop in many ways has made a mockery of itself, and when its premier acts are neither creative nor conscious, MF Doom and Madlib have delivered an undisputed classic. Madvillainy is a rare hip-hop "concept" album filled with frenetic beats and rhymes that are both avant garde and street-level at the same time. Sit down, relax. Madvillian is in control.
Buy
J Dillalude - Robert Glasper Trio
Glasper is an up and coming artist from the Blue Note label and basically a man after my own heart. He is my favorite contemporary jazz musician and pianist. He does what most contemporary jazz artists have a hard time doing - he fuses hip hop with jazz. Taken from a jazzwise interview:
What grips a young... audience is hip hop. And Glasper knows that precisely because he is that audience. “I wasn’t born in the 60s [he was born in 1978] so I’m playing the music of my generation. Every musician does that. Jazz is such an old art, but the more you mix it with what’s new and current people go ‘Uh, that’s not the way you’re meant to do it.”
Well, like it or not, the way Glasper does it is to bring in acres of hip hop flavours, far more than on previous outings like Mood or Canvas, his Blue Note debut.
Buy
Freedom Day - Max Roach and Abby Lincoln
This man is a genius on the drums, there is absolutely no doubt about it. When you add Abby Lincoln as a collaborator, then the result is magical. This song comes out of Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite. The 1950s and 1960s were periods where the African American population experienced considerable amount of violent racism from nearly every institution in the nation’s cities. Black musicians saw the grim situations as intolerable and sought to speak out and tear down the walls of racial oppression through their music. The Freedom Now Suite was a response to these conditions. Roach’s arrangement sound anxious… it sounds like something is about to happen. To me, it sounds even a bit militant (3:30 onward, especially at 4:00), in that Roach’s drums call for action from the community rather than the typical nonviolent protests that had been going on.
Buy
Two Can Win - J Dilla
This man has been my idol ever since I heard the beats for The Pharcyde’s album Labcabincalifornia. When talking about a “Beat” theme, having Jay Dee in the mix is pretty essential to me. Hands down, Jay Dee is the beat master. There is so much depth to his music and the music that he produces. Simply stated: what could reveal Dilla's genius more? Soulful, innovative, jazzy, eclectic, beautiful ... these are the kinds of things that even the most surface-level listen of Donuts will immediately evoke. What is interesting is that Jay Dee, a producer known for chopping breaks in the most imaginative, and thus unrecognizable ways, here leaves them longer, less hidden, giving Donuts a kind of raw, un-cut feel. From one song to the next, you never really know what to expect from this album. An image of what was, and what could have been, Donuts contains some wonderful, yet seemingly incomplete, work. We can only speculate as to how great this album would have been had he been healthy. May he rest in peace. He was one of the men that brought back old school r&b, soul and jazz sounds back to mainstream hip hop. Thankfully it caught on and the public ran with it.
Buy
Once Again - Girl Talk
Girl Talk juxtaposes completely different types of music, and it’s wonderful. A wonderful mash up artist, GT has no boundaries or limits to what he samples for his songs. One of my favorites in this track is when he mashes The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” with The Ying Yang Twins “Wait (Whisper Song).” The tracks manage to convey two ideas at once, and just as often, two truths about the same idea, as when the a 1970's chorus of "I love youuuu..." is matched with the 90's hip hop chant, "we want some pu**y..." This album will definitely keep a party rocking.
Buy
Tribute to J Dilla - Liquid Crystal Project
Though a bit low tempo, this is just a good beat and has a good groove to it. Again, this album is an amazing mix of Jazz and Hip Hop, paying tribute to one of the masters of this, J Dilla. The beat is very infectious and I can’t seem to keep my head still while listening to it. I would suggest this song on a long drive to no where.
Buy
Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) - Marvin Gaye
Listen really closely to the bass line. Aside from the fact that yes, Marvin is amazing, lyrically the song is amazing and the song in itself is very true to the social circumstances of its time, my favorite part of “Inner City Blues” is the wonderful bass line. I love, love, love the duet between Gaye’s singing and the bass line at 3:23.
Buy
Triptych Part 1 - Blockhead
This is one of my favorite albums from the Ninja Tunes label. Blockhead has produced great work when he was collaborating with underground MC Aesop Rock. Now it's his time to shine. Put out in 2004, "Music by Cavelight" is still one of my favorite down tempo albums. To those who are new to the name, Blockhead sounds like RJD2, DJ Shadow mixed with some Bonobo (without the ethnic sampling). "Triptych Part 1" is one of my favorite songs off of this album. The song in itself is incredibly simple. There is a very mellow piano melody throughout, but what Blockhead does is he samples "There is no Greater Love" by Billie Holiday and repeats the line over and over. This creates a really good hook, but also something that is quite haunting yet romantic at the same time.
.
Buy
Cousin Mary - John Coltrane
. Giant Steps, I think is a good middle ground of Coltrane’s albums. You hear him pushing his solos more and playing faster and with more virtuosity when you compare this album to “My Favorite Things.” However, I think it’s more acceptable for those who can’t really relate to his later free jazz work in A Love Supreme. The first few measures of “Cousin Mary” hook me into it. Tommy Flanagan swings on the piano in this piece and it’s absolutely refreshing and Jimmy Cob holds down on the drums. “Cousin Mary" keeps the energy going strong with a powerful bluesy progression at its core, while giving the brilliant rhythm section a chance to shine during Coltrane's reprieves
Buy
Can I get a Witness - Marvin Gaye
This song brings back some really good memories for me and in general makes me want to dance. In my family, we usually bonded around music. My mom first taught me how to play piano when I was like 7. Although I was trained in mostly classical music, to make the lessons fun, my mother would pick one soul/jazz/r&b song that I would learn. One of the songs was “Can I Get a Witness” from Marvin Gaye. The chord progression is so simple, but being able to play it on the piano while my mother and I sang along made the music all the more personal to me. I think doing this influenced the music that I love to listen to and play today.
Buy
Move on Up - Curtis Mayfield
Kanye sample this song in “Touch the Sky.” It’s the original Curtis. It’s funk. Really, need I say any more?
Buy
Accordian - Madvillian
This cut sounds so raw to me. At a time when hip-hop in many ways has made a mockery of itself, and when its premier acts are neither creative nor conscious, MF Doom and Madlib have delivered an undisputed classic. Madvillainy is a rare hip-hop "concept" album filled with frenetic beats and rhymes that are both avant garde and street-level at the same time. Sit down, relax. Madvillian is in control.
Buy
J Dillalude - Robert Glasper Trio
Glasper is an up and coming artist from the Blue Note label and basically a man after my own heart. He is my favorite contemporary jazz musician and pianist. He does what most contemporary jazz artists have a hard time doing - he fuses hip hop with jazz. Taken from a jazzwise interview:
What grips a young... audience is hip hop. And Glasper knows that precisely because he is that audience. “I wasn’t born in the 60s [he was born in 1978] so I’m playing the music of my generation. Every musician does that. Jazz is such an old art, but the more you mix it with what’s new and current people go ‘Uh, that’s not the way you’re meant to do it.”
Well, like it or not, the way Glasper does it is to bring in acres of hip hop flavours, far more than on previous outings like Mood or Canvas, his Blue Note debut.
Buy
Freedom Day - Max Roach and Abby Lincoln
This man is a genius on the drums, there is absolutely no doubt about it. When you add Abby Lincoln as a collaborator, then the result is magical. This song comes out of Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite. The 1950s and 1960s were periods where the African American population experienced considerable amount of violent racism from nearly every institution in the nation’s cities. Black musicians saw the grim situations as intolerable and sought to speak out and tear down the walls of racial oppression through their music. The Freedom Now Suite was a response to these conditions. Roach’s arrangement sound anxious… it sounds like something is about to happen. To me, it sounds even a bit militant (3:30 onward, especially at 4:00), in that Roach’s drums call for action from the community rather than the typical nonviolent protests that had been going on.
Buy