Tag: The Roots

Review: Roy Ayers, the Impressions

by thedailyrecord, posted in Concert review, Kansas City Star

(Above: Roy Ayers dedicates “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” to Miles Davis.)

By Joel Francis
The Kansas City Star

Before James Brown was black and proud and Marvin Gaye asked what’s going on, the Impressions were a winner who got people ready for the train a-comin’.

The Impressions message of racial harmony and black empowerment laid the roots for the black pride movement in soul and the native tongues/backpacker strain of hip hop today. The soul trio’s performance Saturday at the 40 Acres and a Mule Activity Campus in southeast Kansas City, Mo. capped the first day of the Juneteenth Family Festival, which celebrates the end of slavery in America.

Taking the stage in matching white suits, the Impressions quickly touched the sky with “Move On Up,” a song that established their leader and songwriter Curtis Mayfield as a solo artist. Although the set bounced between Impressions and Mayfield material, the songs were rooted in Mayfield’s late ‘60s/early ‘70s prime.

“Choice of Colors” felt like a hymn and was followed by the buoyant “We’re A Winner,” which got a healthy portion of the crowd of 300 clapping or on their feet. Impression Reggie Torian donned a black cape and white hat while the bass thumped the familiar melody to “Superfly.”

Torian had the unenviable job of taking Mayfield’s place. Although Mayfield, who died 10 years ago, will never be replaced, Torian did a good job capturing Mayfield’s rich falsetto on “I’m So Proud” and “I Loved and Lost.”

In an age of reunion bands and acts carrying on with only one original member, it would be easy to dismiss the Impressions as a Mayfield tribute act. Fortunately, the singers flanking Torian onstage are Fred Cash and Sam Gooden,  the very people who sang, toured and recorded alongside Mayfield back in the day.

Backed by a seven-piece band that included a nearly obscured three-piece horn section, the Impressions were swinging through “Woman’s Got Soul” when a 40 Acres staff member came onstage. Confused, the band ended the song and announced that it was time for them to go.  Ending with a rushed version of “It’s Alright,” they departed 40 minutes after taking the stage.

The Impressions’ set was likely cut short because Roy Ayers’ ran long.  Ayers immediately preceded the Impressions, and while he made his name blurring the lines between jazz and funk in the early ‘70s, his 70 minute set concentrated on the slick R&B that made him a radio staple in the last half of the decade.

Backed by the local octet Ronnie Reed and the Millennium, Ayers took the stage halfway through a jam based on the JB’s “Pass the Peas” and quickly showed why he’s been the go-to guy for everyone from the Roots to Fela Kuti.

Ayers’ playing is at once funky and smooth. His approach to the vibraphone renders it a sonic mutant of drums, piano and guitar. His solos were so captivating that they rendered Millennium’s horn players irrelevant. As Ayers’ hammered away backed by the bare minimum of a groove, the suddenly extraneous horn section were relegated to synchronized dancing duty.

After an instrumental introduction, Ayers took over the mic and romped through four crowd pleasers. “Everybody Loves the Sun” drew many to their feet and Ayers got the rest involved by leading them through the lyrics. “Running Away” stayed in the same vein and featured a lengthy trumpet solo. Ayers was gracious in letting everyone in Millennium take long solos throughout the night.

Ayers ended his set walking through the crowd personally giving out free copies of his new live album. It seemed generous at the time, but ended up being an exchange of live music for recorded. Although the Impressions seemed ready to give more, no one was complaining either.

Setlists:
The Impressions – Move On Up; Mighty Mighty (Spade and Whitey); Choice of Colors; We’re A Winner; Superfly; I Loved and Lost; Gypsy Woman; I’m So Proud; Woman’s Got Soul; It’s Alright

Roy Ayers – Pass the Peas; Everybody Loves the Sunshine; Running Away; Don’t Stop the Feeling; Searching

15 jazz greats to emerge in the last 20 years (part three)

by thedailyrecord, posted in Album review, Industry commentary, Kansas City music scene
(Above: Savion Glover does his thing with plenty o’ swing.)

By Joel Francis
The Daily Record

Continuing The Daily Record’s look at the state of jazz today, here is the final of three installments shedding light on 15 jazz greats to emerge in the last 20 years. Note that these musicians are not necessarily the 15 greatest jazz artists to arrive since 1990. A brief listen to any of them, though, should more than persuade the most ardent purist that jazz is alive and well.

Eldar Djangirov

Eldar Djangirov is the continuation of the great line of pianists to emerge from Kansas City, Mo. that stretches back to Count Basie and Jay McShann. The three have more than an adopted hometown in common, though. Although none were born in Kansas City, all experienced significant musical growth while living there. Unlike Basie and McShann, though, Eldar’s formation started before puberty. He performed at a Russian jazz festival at age 5 and at age 12 became the youngest guest ever on Marian McPartlan’s Piano Jazz radio show. Though his latest album is straight-up smooth jazz, Eldar’s earlier work has a breadth that recalls everyone from Ahmad Jamal to Art Tatum. Albums to start with: Eldar, Live at the Blue Note

Christian McBride

Bass player Christian McBride was mentored and hailed by no less an authority than Ray Brown before starting off on his own. McBride works comfortably in the traditional vein on his early albums like “Fingerpainting,” the excellent tribute to Herbie Hancock performed in a bass/guitar/trumpet setting. He gets more funky and touches on fusion with his three-disc live set recorded at Tonic and studio albums “Sci-Fi” and “Vertical Vision.” In 2003, McBride collaborated with hip hop drummer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson of the Roots and keyboardist Uri Caine for a spectacular collaboration known as the Philadelphia Experiment. McBride has also worked extensively with Sting and Pat Metheny. Albums to start with: Fingerpainting, The Philadelphia Experiment.

Joshua Redman

Expectations have been high for Joshua Redman since winning the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1991. While Redman hasn’t fulfilled those unrealistic expectations by taking his instrument to the heights achieved by Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, he has built a strong career on his own terms. Redman’s early quintets helped launch the careers of Christian McBride and Brad Mehldau and his work as musical director of the San Francisco Jazz Collective paired him with legends like Bobby Hutcherson and new artists like Miguel Zenon. Redman’s catalog is adventurous enough to include covers of Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” with guitarist Pat Metheny and funky experiments that recall Eddie Harris. Albums to start with: Spirit of the Moment, Back East.

Savion Glover

Jazz tap may have died with the golden age of big-budget Hollywood musicals, but Savion Glover is trying his best to bring it back. He has appeared in televised concerts with Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at the Lincoln Center Orchestra, collaborated with poet Reg E. Gaines and saxophone player Matana Roberts for the John Coltrane-inspired improve “If Trane Was Here,” appeared in Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled” and was a cast member of “Sesame Street.” Glover hasn’t recorded any albums, but his live performances are a potent reminder that jazz isn’t the exclusive province of those with a horn or a voice.

Bad Plus

Combining rock and jazz is nothing new, but the piano/drums/bass trio Bad Plus have done it in an acoustic setting that resembles Medeski, Martin and Wood more than Weather Report. Their early albums were filled with original material that split the difference between Oscar Peterson and Ben Folds, tempered by occasional arrangements of Pixies and Black Sabbath classics. Unfortunately, recent releases have steered sharply away from new compositions and saturated the increasing covers with more irony. While the concept of their newest album – all covers with a female vocalist – makes one wary, their early material should not be overlooked. Albums to start with: Give, Suspicious Activity.

Keep Reading 15 Jazz Greats to Emerge in the Last 20 Years

Part One

Part Two

Five Legends Still Adding to Their Legacies

Bird lives! (and so will jazz)

by thedailyrecord, posted in Industry commentary
(Above: Mos Def is a rapper, but his song “Umi Says” has a very jazzy feel.)

By Joel Francis
The Daily Record

The New York Times jazz and pop critic Ben Ratliff participated in a very enlightening Q and A with readers yesterday. It seems Kansas City jazz fans, like our friend at Plastic Sax, aren’t the only ones obsessed about the state of the genre.

Several people asked Ratliff why jazz didn’t have a bigger audience, what the media’s responsibility is to promote jazz to a larger audience, if there is a stigma against jazz in mainstream culture and, most bluntly, whether jazz was dead.

Similarly, several readers were concerned about the legacy of today’s jazz artists. They asked which contemporary artists have the best potential to join the pantheon of innovators like Miles and Duke, and whether the current crop of players are pioneers or regurgitators. One bold reader actually called out the elephant likely hiding behind many of these questions. “Pretty much all jazz sounds the same today,” he said.

It seems that just as baseball fans can’t wait to compare Albert Pujols to Stan Musial, jazzheads love debating the merits of John Medeski to Jimmy Smith or Joshua Redman to Sonny Rollins. They (we) are forever insecure that our moment in the sun won’t measure up to the established legacy. They are right. Just as no contemporary president will be as lauded as the Founding Fathers, and no slugging outfield can surpass Babe Ruth’s mythology, there is no way that the abilities of Jaco Pastorius or Christian McBride can exceed the monumental achievements of Charlie Mingus and Ray Brown.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t all be enjoyed. Trumpeter Roy Hargrove hasn’t redefined the instrument the way Louis Armstrong did in the Hot Five and Hot Seven, but I think his playing on D’Angelo’s “Voodoo” and Common’s “Like Water For Chocolate” is inventive and unique. There is no comparison between the works, because they can’t be compared. They exist in different worlds. And questions about “is it jazz” are as silly and insignificant as whether or not poker or Nascar are sports. It doesn’t matter.

One of the elements I enjoy most about jazz is watching how it absorbed in reinterpreted in new contexts. One can hear the free jazz influence of John Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders in both the Stooges and the Soft Machine, but what they did with it was drastically different.

Ironically, “fans” might be the only ones worrying or arguing about these issues. Just as Hargrove had no problem working with Common and D’Angelo, I’m sure Ron Carter didn’t hesitate before recording with A Tribe Called Quest and Black Star. Artists make art, not distinctions.

To these ears, pieces like “Water” from the Roots’ album “Phrenology” or Mos Def’s “Modern Marvel” from “The New Danger” embody the spirit of jazz as much as anything Rudy Van Gelder recorded for Impulse or Blue Note.

Just as folk music survived the birth of the electric guitar (and Bob Dylan plugging in), and Sacred Harp has peacefully coexisted with gospel, jazz will survive. It will not be preserved in amber, but it is too indelible to be erased from American culture.

Although Ratliff’s answers were thoughtful and informative, he failed to pass along one key piece of advice to the Chicken Littles so worried about the future of their art: Pick up a horn and do it yourself.

Green Ribbon Haikus

by thedailyrecord, posted in Top 10

feedtheanimals_news
By Joel Francis

Before we bid farewell to 2008, let’s have some more haiku fun and revisit five albums that may not have made The Daily Record’s year-end, best-of list but still merit a listen.

Girl Talk – “Feed The Animals”
Is it art? Question
eclipses legalities.
WTF? Dance! Dance!

The Hold Steady – “Stay Positive”
Great songwriting, strong
performances. Forget Bruce,
Craig Finn holds his own.

Rachel Yamagata – “Elephants…Teeth Sinking into Heart”
Aching ballads and
torrid rockers on two discs.
Schizophrenic’s OK. 

Sigur Ros – “Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust”
Don’t speak Icelandic?
Who does? Same great songwriting,
new stripped-down approach.

The Roots – “Rising Down”
For once, band doesn’t
reinvent themselves. Solid,
if similar; guests thrive.

Review: For The Roots It’s All In The Music

by thedailyrecord, posted in Concert review, Kansas City Star

Above: “You Got Me” in Japan earlier this year.

By Joel Francis

The Kansas City Star

Underground artist Girl Talk has generated some buzz with his second album, which layers Public Enemy over Heart, mashes M.I.A. with the Cranberries and mixes “C’mon N Ride It (The Train)” into “99 Tears.”

What Girl Talk does on his laptop, the Roots did live on stage for two hours on Thursday in the sold-out Harrah’s Voodoo Lounge. Whether it was bass player Owen Biddle quoting the melody for Duke Ellington’s “Caravan,” MC Black Thought leading the way through Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up” or between-song riffs on “Iko Iko” or “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead,” the septet touched on nearly every facet of recorded music.

The Roots’ biggest hit, “You Got Me,” was also the most transformed. The song somehow morphed from neo soul ballad into “My Favorite Things,” a bass solo/metal jam and Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” before wrapping up.

The evening started quietly, with guitarist Kirk Douglas alone onstage, noodling away. With a tip of the hat to the Talking Heads, the other band members slowly joined him and picked up their instruments. By the time everyone was assembled MC Black Thought ripped into “I Can’t Help It.” They wouldn’t let up for the next hour.

Prowling the stage like panthers, the super-tight ensemble dropped volume and tempo on a dime, majestically flowing each song into the next regardless of style or arrangement — the ultimate mixtape.

There were no down moments or low points. Each song fed off the previous number’s energy and all were spectacular. Of particular note was a reading of “Quills” taken at Ramones speed that showcased Black Thought’s amazing breath control and stamina.

When most bands want more low end they turn the bass up. The Roots hired a tuba player. Damon Bryson, a.k.a. Tuba Gooding Jr., leapt joyously about the stage despite his heavy instrument, blasting away “All in the Music” and buoying the typically horn-heavy “Jungle Boogie.” Longtime Roots collaborator James Poyser sat in for missing keyboard player Kamal Gray and added a Dr. Dre synth line to “I Will Not Apologize.”

The centerpiece of the evening was a 15-minute rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War.” Performed by the trio of drummer Questlove, Tuba and Douglas, the song was previously played at the band’s rapturous performance in Kansas City at Harrah’s last year. Questlove said they were going to keep doing it until the war in Iraq was over. The song bobbed and weaved its way through the “Star Spangled Banner,” “Taps,” a military drum cadence, a Black Sabbath send-up and a drum solo. Owing more to Jimi Hendrix’ “Machine Gun” than Woody Guthrie, the song ended with Douglas and Tuba working their way through the crowd, soloing furiously. It was an eerie prelude to Independence Day.

For people who need classifications, the Roots are typically filed under hip hop. For everyone else, they are everything that’s right with music today.

Setlist: I Can’t Help It, Rising Up, Please Don’t Go, In the Music, Star, Quills, Step Into the Realm, Proceed, Long Time, Mellow My Man, Act Too (The Love of My Life), Criminal, Masters of War, I Will Not Apologize, You Got Me, Get Busy, Jungle Boogie/Don’t Feel Right, The Next Movement (encore:) The Seed 2.0, Men at Work

Below: The first third of “Masters of War” from Montreal last May.

Rage Rocks the Bells

by thedailyrecord, posted in Concert review

Rock the Bells Zack

Public Enemy, Black Star, The Roots and Wu-Tang fight the Battle of the Bay in San Francisco

By Joel Francis

The Giants may have been out of town, but that didn’t stop the hits from pouring across McCovey Cove near ATT Stadium when the Rock the Bells festival landed in San Francisco last week.


It was a dream bill that 45,000 fans of ‘90s hip hop couldn’t resist, but with two stages of incredible lineups performing simultaneously some sacrifices had to be made. In the end, The Roots won over The Coup and Public Enemy trumped Blackalicious. Below are some of the day’s highlights.


Public Enemy

Public Enemy was raging against the machine before there was a Rage Against the Machine. Backed by a full band, Chuck D, Flavor Flav and Terminator X showed that songs written during Reagan and Bush Sr. still had plenty of both relevance and resonance. The band did their best Rage tribute with a version of “Son of a Bush” that’s unlikely to win any fans at Fox News. That said, Chuck D probably knows he’s unlikely to win any new fans in the era of T.I., Chamillionaire and, shudder, Flavor of Love, so the band mostly stuck to songs off its groundbreaking initial albums like “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” “Fight the Power,” “Rebel Without a Pause,” and “Public Enemy No. 1.” Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian popped out to lend his axe to “Bring the Noise” and Flavor Flav closed down the set with a performance of “911 Is A Joke” that had the crowd rapping along.


The Roots

As anyone who saw the Roots perform at the Voodoo Lounge last spring can attest, this Philadelphia-based band is one of the most engaging and entertaining performers in the business – regardless of genre. Giving the only 45 minutes was criminal, though predictably the band made the most of what they had. MC Black Thought and drummer/bandleader ?uestlove opened the set with drums-and-mic duet “Web” before the rest of the band and a three-piece horn section joined them. Every song was a highlight, but to watch the group transition from the hip hop beats of “The Next Movement”  to the funky rock of “The Seed 2.0” to the neo-soul flavors of “Act Too (The Love of My Life)” and finally a Philly soul cover of “I Can Understand It” was mind-bogglingly delicious.


Talib Kweli and Mos Def

Mos Def and Talib Kweli have only made one album together which was released nearly a decade ago, but they are still linked in most fans’ minds. There’s good reason for this, as each bring out the best in the other. Mos Def is one of the most improvisational MCs in the business, which is both a blessing and a curse. On his best nights, he rivals most jazz performers with his reworkings of song. On an off night, he comes across as bored. Kweli is one of the best MCs in the game (you don’t get props from Jay-Z on record for nothing) who keeps getting better, but can at times slip into auctioneer mode. Kweli keeps Mos from wandering off, while Mos pushes Kweli’s cadences.

Kweli opened the set on his own, teasing songs from his new album, “Ear Drum,” and launching into classics like “The Blast” and “Move Something,” before bringing out Strong Arm Steady and Jean Grae. Though the guests – especially Grae – were a nice surprise, Kweli was at his best when the DJ dropped out and let Kweli rhyme a cappella. Mos Def took the stage halfway through “Get By” and the results were as close to jazz as two men with a mic are likely to get. From there the duo segued into the classic “Definition,” “Supreme Supreme,” a newer collaboration, and “Respiration.”


Mos performed most of his set on the ground in the area between the stage and the crowd barricade after noticing the strong wind off the bay had the lighting rigs swaying like chandeliers. “It’s hard enough to be a black man in America,” he quipped. “I got kids, y’all.” Fortunately, video cameras and three giant screens kept Mos from being invisible at ground level as he worked his way through a set heavy on newer material. Mos closed with a great medley of “Ms. Fat Booty” and “Brown Skin Lady,” which brought Kweli back out and, finally, “Umi Says.”


Wu-Tang Clan

Hip hop as a live medium tends to get a bad rap (sorry) and acts like Wu-Tang Clan are Exhibit A on how something that sounds great on record doesn’t always transfer well to the stage. Part of the problem is the makeup of the group. There are nine MCs in the Clan, which can be a nightmare at the mixing board. Throughout the evening, each mic was mixed at a different level, rendering lots of vocals inaudible and resulting in something that sounded like loud choreographed chanting. Most songs could only be recognized by the sample or the chorus. Oddly enough the evening’s finest number, “Triumph,” had little in the way of either. Method Man carried the rest of the Clan on his back and carried the night (when he wasn’t crowd surfing and being carried by the crowd), which leaned heavily towards the group’s debut “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).”


Rage Against the Machine

After seven years and nearly two presidential terms apart, Rage reclaimed the stage with a force and energy so powerful a S.W.A.T. team should have assembled. In between Wu-Tang and Rage’s sets, the crowd quickly morphed from a diverse, backpacker good-times gathering to a muscular, white frat-boy mosh pit. There was a mixture of menace and testosterone in the air as a crowd who had patiently waited through three Audioslave albums hungered for the return of the real thing.

They weren’t disappointed. Singer Zack De La Rocha led the band through over a dozen volatile indictments that included hits like “Bombtrack,” “Bulls on Parade” and “Guerilla Radio” with album cuts like “Bullet in the Head,” “Vietnow” and the Afrika Bambaataa cover “Renegades of Funk.” This was the musical equivalent of “Fight Club.”


As the festival closed, the defiant refrain of “Killing in the Name” hung in the air. Seven years was too long to wait, but the combustion of Rage’s 80-minute set made it understandable why these ingredients couldn’t be mixed too often.

Top 10 Albums of 2006

by thedailyrecord, posted in Bob Dylan, Kansas City Star, Top 10

Game Theory – The Roots
The Boxing Mirror – Alejandro Escovedo
The Obliterati – Mission of Burma
St. Elsewhere – Gnarls Barkley
Fox Brings the Confessor – Neko Case
Fishscales – Ghostface Killah
Return to Cookie Mountian – TV on the Radio
In the Pines – In the Pines
Begin to Hope – Regina Spektor
Modern Times – Bob Dylan