Tag Archives: soul jazz

Compared to What

Music, Publicity, ,

My instrumental group The Metrocenter has a new tune out, but this one is different: a cover with vocals, the classic soul jazz protest song “Compared to What.”

Here it is on Bandcamp. Here it is on Spotify. My staff tells me it’s on the other streamers, too.

Previously, I knew of three versions of this song. The one that came to me first was the weirdest, a cover by Col. Bruce Hampton (ret.) and his band the Aquarium Rescue Unit. I got big into Bruce during high school and college, and this is on their live album from 1992.1

The second version is the classic: Les McCann and Eddie Harris from the live album Swiss Movement, a veritable Maxell cassette experience if there ever were one. McCann’s vocals are unimprovable. The album also contains the great Harris tune “Cold Duck Time.”

The third version was one I didn’t even know about until we started discussing this song as a possible project — Roberta Flack, who recently passed away. This is the arrangement we mimic the closest in this Metrocenter recording. Here the rage is served chilled, bemused.

Credits:
Denny Burkes: drums, production, vision
Jakob Clark: bass and background vocals
Drew McKercher: guitar and mastering
Maya Kyles: vocals
Me: Wurlitzer electric piano2

  1. A ridiculous line-up of musicians, but whatever happened to the mandolin player, Matt Mundy? I remember that name because of the excellent mandolin playing but also because Bruce chants out the name at some point during the album. To this day, when I think mandolin, I think Matt Mundy. ↩︎
  2. Specifically the Wurlitzer 120 that belonged to my late father, a beige, paint-flaking, rectangle spinet-looking device that existed in only moderately playable condition for most of my childhood and then in a state of total malfunction for most of my adulthood. This is the Ray Charles model, for you true heads out there. I think the paint color name is technically Zolatone. What a great name for a band. The piano was something we always needed to get fixed. The keys rattled against each other like loose teeth and would not reliably strike the tines. At some point the tube amplifier contained inside the piano died. In 2023, I finally connected with Tony, local Wurlitzer repair wizard, who worked on the keys one afternoon while I shivered in his garage. And then after years of aimless googling, I found Jimmy, who must be able to fix anything electronic. He brought the amplifier back to life and made some upgrades, such as a three-pronged power cord and a line out. Finally in the fall of 2024 it was fully alive again. I mean, it’s still old and rickety. Tony: “Don’t gig that thing.” But it’s back home and it works. It makes sound, music even. I remember my father and I first hauling it down to Morrison Brothers to have them look at fixing it back in the late 80s, middle school days. The fact that this instrument is now preserved on this track, even with my meager playing, is quietly gratifying. I fully confess that I am a sentimental, middle-aged fool when it comes to musical instruments, but some mechanisms, with enough money, time, and expert help, can be brought back to life, if just briefly. I’ll take whatever resurrections I can get. ↩︎

The Persistence of the Organ Trio

Music, ,

Down here in the Land of Progress some friends of mine just released their debut soul jazz album. Check it: 

Soul City 3 on Bandcamp: https://thesoulcity3.bandcamp.com/album/the-bold-new

On Spotify: 

What is the organ trio? And why does the organ trio persist? You might think that an organ trio was a fusty, fleeting, postwar-jazz, R&B-adjacent fad, but you would be wrong. They are still out there, writing and performing new music. They typically occupy a liminal space between your harder-core jazz and your instrumental R&B, the elevator and the club. I love this music, for precisely this in-between status. One could argue that “Alligator Bogallo” by the Lou Donaldson Quintet is the first soul jazz organ trio type record, and I find this reptilian identity important. It lives in multiple realms and it absorbs the temperature of the environment surrounding it. 

It’s not so much a genre as a format, an arrangement of instrumentation, a severe limitation: Hammond organ with Leslie tone cabinet (with the organist holding down the roll of bass player), guitar, and drums.1

Like the string quartet, or the bluegrass quintet, or (its closest relative) the piano-upright bass-drums acoustic jazz trio, it’s a distinct format that probably developed through historical accident but has proved permanently plastic and pleasing, and thus can contain any manner of song or approach to melody, but by virtue of its limitations transforms the material. It absorbs the songs into its own tradition. 

I had the privilege of subbing on guitar in the SC3 a few weeks back, and one of the songs we played was the Daft Punk tune “Lose Yourself to Dance,” a song I don’t particularly like in its original form. The only thing I know about Daft Punk is that they wear those helmets, and I, normie that I am, prefer “Get Lucky.” But once we played “Lose Yourself to Dance,” it ceased being merely a Daft Punk tune and became a much more interesting version of itself. It was teleported from the spaceship dancefloor of Now and thrown into another tradition. I suppose you could make the argument that any instrumental group does this passionate repossessing when it covers a song, but the primitive restrictions of this format makes the altercation more drastic. Like a Mondrian painting, the limited palette helps you see. 

And I think that’s the reason why the organ trio has persisted, because of this alchemical just-right mixture of ingredients, this short door opening onto a larger room. It certainly doesn’t make sense technologically. A Hammond organ is a 400 pound machine that is no longer in production. It’s true that it can’t be exactly replicated with current digital technology, but it’s close. I can’t tell the difference. The harder technological hurdle remains the Leslie tone cabinet, which contains two speakers, a horn up top and a downfiring woofer, both of which spin and have an overall adjustable speed. This creates a Doppler effect and gives the organ its ululating, pentecostal fervor. It literally raises hair. The digital recreations of this effect aren’t quite satisfactory, though I will be the first to admit that my ears are too unsophisticated to pick apart why. Does the organist have to use the tube-powered, tone-wheel version of the instrument to qualify as a True Organist for our purposes here? No, I am not that puritanical. Besides, I don’t want to move that thing across town. 

Now here are some organ groups that I like: 

— Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, probably the best current example, particularly the extant albums which feature Jimmy James on guitar, true heir to Steve Cropper

— Parlor Greens, a kind of organ trio super group, featuring James, Scone, and Carman — all mentioned here

— Eric Scone down in Miami leads the Scone Cash Players among other organ projects

— The White Blinds, led by drummer Michael Duffy (L.A./Miami)

— The City Champs, out of Memphis. Their first two albums totally slay. A moment of reverent props for their guitar player, Joe Restivo. 

— Tim Carmon Trio, whose new album King Comfy is extremely good. Great tunes, perfectly recorded.

— The New Mastersounds (four piece). Their guitar player, Eddie Roberts, is the P.T. Barnum of current soul jazz music. 

— Ibrahim Electric (from Denmark, their live album is complete bananas) 

— Anything by Wil Blades, organist out of L.A. Special mention goes to his live album with Charlie Hunter and George Sluppick (of City Champs fame) and his duo project with drummer Scott Amendola. 

— Special mention to Fat Produce, an organ-less trio (guitar, drums, and upright bass) out of Miami that still produces the same excitement via limitation. Yes, I realize my boundaries are breaking down. What can I say? All categories are arbitrary and inevitably dissolve into a list of stuff I just consistently enjoy. 

  1. For the real heads: specifically, a four-piece drumset in Bop sizes, unmuffled and tuned high, no more than two non-hihat cymbals. Hammond organ of the A, B, or C models, with the footpedals, going into tube-powered Leslie tone cabinet, bass lines played with a combination of feet and left hand on the lower register (contra Gospel practice). Guitar: a full hollowbody with P90 pickups, flatwound strings, going through zero guitar pedals into a low wattage non-master volume tube amplifier. Sometimes that guitar role is covered by a horn, typically a tenor saxophone. Yes, I need a different hobby. Yes, this can turn into a costume drama very quickly. Yes, I am no fun at parties.