from Reelin’ In The Years to Aja to Two Against And the obvious low hanging fruit is The a straight up pop song but there is that one
Nature, all of those records are incredible, they Beatles. If people are not familiar with The interesting moment.
have such a breadth of catalogue. Steely Dan Beatles, you’ve just got to get down with The is the starting place for me. Beatles. For me that’s ‘Pop Music 101’ and Earth Wind & Fire are huge, because of
‘Experimentation 101’ also. It’s very accessible arrangement, because of melody. If you listen
Next would be Prince, if somebody is not Pop music, but pretty much all of the songs to Earth Wind & Fire songs there is so much
familiar with Prince they’ve just gotta wake up. have this one interesting thing about them rhythmic motion and it’s such a large ensemble,
Just for musicianship, groove, and versatility, that’s maybe a little bit left of center, which I but everybody is purposefully playing. Everyone
there is just so much there. love, there’s just that little extra something is playing a specific thing and it’s all working,
interesting. And I love that, I love when it’s it’s an arrangement that’s all worked out. The
keyboards are playing a specific thing that
works this specific way that compliments
what the horns are doing, and vice versa. The
guitars, drums, and bass, all of the stuff works
together. And then the vocals and harmony is
incredible.
In the bass world, I love James Jamerson’s
work with the Jackson 5, there are just so many
hooks in that music. The instrumentation might
be a lot simpler but there are so many melodies
everywhere. The bass line is a melody, the lyrics
and vocals are hooks, and there are harmonies
happening there. So much energy and harmony
rounded out by simple musical things!
Weezer! I love Weezer! I freaking love Weezer,
and their Blue album is one of my favorite
albums of all time. Super-catchy fun songs,
but also very rock and heavy in moments Every
song has a guitar solo, and you know what?
The guitar solos are really tasteful, it’s not just
shredding. A lot of times it’s just the vocal
melody on the guitar. It’s cool, and it’s a very
musical way of doing a guitar solo.
You brought up “Dean Town”/”Teen Town”.
Weather Report and Jaco Pastorius! Jaco’s
one of the most influential bass players of all
time for good reason. He was just such an
innovator on the instrument. The music is the
sort of thing where it revolves around him,
it almost has no choice but to. So, the only
hesitation I have with things like this is that Jaco
could pull off being Jaco because he was Jaco.
The music is kind of written for and centered
around that. The thing that you always have to
keep in mind with anybody you’re listening to,
anybody that influences you, whether you’re
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February 2019
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