As I always emphasise the importance of listening to loads of good funk to inspire you and to develop an understanding of the idiosyncratic elements of this style, I thought that this month I’d talk a little bit about active listening habits.
One of the great moments in all musicians’ lives must be the release of their first record. ‘Release’ for an indie artist, like myself, often means that when the CDs arrive from the pressing plant the initial excitement is rapidly replaced by tricky negotiations with the wife/husband/girlfriend/ boyfriend/life partner regarding where all the boxes are going to ‘live’. But more to the point, I always enjoy it when a musician presents me with their opus. I generally make a real effort to listen to all the CDs kindly given to me, honouring all the blood, sweat and tears that went into it.
I do most of my intense listening in the car travelling to and from rehearsals and gigs. I’m sure I’m not the only one, as ‘musos’ are often really busy at home practising, emailing, picking up calls, etc. But nowadays, with the average CD holding about ten tracks, I find it quite hard to sit through an entire hour or so to ‘just’ listen to a whole CD.
Therefore, my personal listening strategy is to listen to CDs like I used to listen to vinyl, in two sittings – the A side and the B side. Most artists put their best stuff first, with the understandable intention of capturing the attention of the listener with maximum impact. However, what I like to do is to start listening to the second half of the CD first to gauge the calibre of the offering. If the second half of the CD is blowing my little funky socks off, then there is a very good chance that I am absolutely going to love the first half and that the whole thing is a knockout. I really try to be with the music and dive into it without any distractions (well… er…motorway traffic…it doesn’t work in town for me).
Interestingly, I certainly find it easier to listen to CDs that were originally released on vinyl as they are generally a lot shorter, around the 40-minute mark, so I can do the whole thing in one sitting. Parliament’s Mothership Connection is 41 minutes and 30 seconds and this is including a three-minute radio version (eight tracks). So the original vinyl album was only around 38 minutes long. Lou Donaldson’s Everything I Play Is Funky comes in at 38 minutes 51 seconds and six tracks. In contrast, the absolutely brilliant Outta Here by Lettuce comes in with one 64 minutes and 7 seconds (11 tracks). D’Angelo’s Voodoo features 13 tracks and lasts for a delicious 86 minutes and 12 seconds of fabulous grooves. Both albums are killers but I have never listened to them from beginning to end, rather in their respective ‘two halves’.
I had the urge to check my own records based on what I’ve said:
- Boozing Wizards – 45:21;
- Falling From Insanity – 56:16;
- Hausmusik – 69:16;
- Concubine Chronicles – 64:14;
a total of 3 hours 55 minutes 07 seconds. Hmm…
Here is a story from Quincy Jones’s autobiography that really stuck with me. ‘This was the big moment … sat down and listened to the final test pressing of a record [Thriller] that was to be the follow-up to Off The Wall. It was a disaster… We had a 24-carat sonic doo-doo. We’d put too much material on the record. To be really competitive on the radio, you need big, fat grooves to make a big, fat sound. If you squeeze it into thin grooves, you get a tinny sound. We had 28 minutes of sound on each side …
‘With vinyl, you had to be realistic; it had to be under 19 minutes of music per side. This was now all about physics first, then music. On CDs it doesn’t matter, because it’s digital.’ (From Q: The Autobiography Of Quincy Jones, page 238, from the chapter ‘Thriller’.)
Writing all this makes me think that our new album, The Cooker, shouldn’t be longer than 45 minutes… Oh dear, I think I might have messed up here. How do you listen to ‘funky-jazzyyeah’ music? Send me an email and share your thoughts. In the meanwhile, put your bass to work with this month’s funk offering.
Funktionality
I was always fascinated by tracks that had extremely square drumbeats (‘four-on-the-floor’) that still sounded megafunky, especially through brilliant guitar and bass performances, eg ‘Sexy Dancer’ by Prince or ‘Can’t Let Go’ by Earth, Wind and Fire. So Thomas and I went about creating a track with this in mind. The main riff is based on the B minor blues scale but we also threw a few tasty jazzy chord progressions in the mix. It’s time to hit your bass really hard, both with fingerstyle and slap style.
Listen to the full version of Funktionality by RB Funkestra at Soundcloud
Intro
The intro is played fingerstyle with dig-in factor 10 (out of 10), starting on the 10th fret on the E string for that lovely big sound. The master of this is without a doubt Larry Graham. I recently saw him with his Central Station at the Koko in Camden and he is undoubtedly one of the gods of funk in my book. The chords are: D13 – Db13 – C13/Bmi7.
Main Riff
The A and E sections feature the main four-bar riff. It is played fingerstyle with a prominent popping (marked with ‘pop’) in the third bar. Note that all 16th notes have a tiny amount of swing to them and are not ‘mathematically’ straight. The fourth bar provides the whole phrase with a breather by hitting straight quarter notes (F7 – E7sus4 – C#mi7 – C7). I played this with open strings because I like the sound, but of course, you could also play it with all notes fretted higher up the neck.
B Section
This is still played fingerstyle, hitting the strings extremely hard in order to get that lovely fret buzz by plucking the string with a heavy downstroke motion.
Flea likes to play this way as is prominently heard on ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’ by the RHCP.
C Section
This section is almost out of character for me as this is one of the rare occasions when I employ the slap style. This two-bar phrase gives you the opportunity to play your own fills in the second bar. Perhaps unusually so, I played the riff higher up on the neck with the low notes on the E string rather than on the A string. I just thought it sounded ‘phatter’.
D Section
A de facto breakdown, here we create a chilled-out section to inject some contrast to the busy main riff. Using long notes helps to support this idea. In case you want to know the chord progression, here it is: Gmaj9/Emi7/F#7sus – F#7/Bmi7.
End
For the last time the thumb is coming out for one bar, followed by two heavy hits played fingerstyle. The slides and notes are all played on the E string only.
Here’s the whole track with no bass – go nuts 
Funktionality-no bass by RB Funkestra
Listening Recommendations
This month’s listening recommendation has two tunes with a heavy emphasis on fingerstyle funk with chops galore, and two with the opposite approach – simple lines with loads of space but equally funky. I’m sure you will be able to work out which are which.
- Tower of Power – ‘You Got To Funkifize’ from Bump City; bass: Francis Rocco Prestia
- Joni Mitchell – ‘The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines’ from Mingus and also Shadows And Light; bass: Jaco Pastorius
- Medeski, Martin & Wood - ‘Is There Anybody Here That Love My Jesus’ – from Shack Man; bass: Chris Wood
- James Brown – ‘The Payback’ from The Payback; bass: Fred Thomas
Repertoire
This month I recommend only one track to emphasise its importance. Written by tenor player Pee Wee Ellis it seems to be the classic bass feature/jam track for all funkified and ‘bassists getting together’ (read: bass conventions) occasions.
- Jaco Pastorius – the classic version – ‘The Chicken’ from The Birthday Concert; bass (well, a little self-explanatory, I know): Jaco Pastorius
- Maceo Parker – organ bass version featuring the writer – ‘The Chicken’ from Mo’ Roots; bass: Larry Goldings playing bass on the Hammond organ
- Nils Landgren – the trombone feature version – ‘The Chicken’ Funk Unit – Live In Stockholm; bass: Magnum Coltrane Price
- Scott Wilkie – smooth jazz version with slap bass – ‘The Chicken’ from More Than You Know; bass: Nathan Brown
Website Of The Month
We have all been there – wanting a killer-sounding backing track but have to make do with a low-fi midi-sounding substitute. Consequently I was delighted when I came across this site: check out the ‘minus bass’ bundles – great sounds and playing throughout.
Follow the Funk!