Thursday, June 3, 2021

JAZZ COVERS: GOLDEN BROWN

After the last post there was only one possible follow on piece, to look at a brilliant and mesmerisingly accurate spoof on/homage to Brubeck, and, of course, the Stranglers. One that had a fair few fooled. 


Was Dave Greenfield, the late keyboard player for the Stranglers, and the writer of the repeating harpsichord riff in the song, influenced by Brubeck? He would say not, but it does not seem unreasonable to think each were influenced by the composers of the baroque period, as, for that matter, will have been Ray Manzarek, often and lazily touted as Greenfield's main contemporary influence. Who cares, frankly, I love 'em all, and could listen all day to any of these three.


Laurence Mason is a music graduate of Leeds Conservatoire who likes messing around with the available technology, as well as being an adept player of many instruments. When Greenfield died, he wanted to pay tribute and, already aware of the acknowledged similar ambience of both Golden Brown and Take Five, apropos existing mash-ups like this, decided to go a step further: 

A little tribute to Dave Greenfield (keyboardist with The Stranglers who died with Covid-19 last week) and Paul Desmond (saxophonist with the Dave Brubeck quartet – the anniversary of his death is at the end of this month).

Also because I’ve been enjoying editing videos and recording stuff over the last couple of months. A couple of people have asked how I made this video so here we go – I took a clip from a 1964 live version of Take Five (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT9Eh…) and made the drum loop by chopping up the intro and turning it from 5/4 into the 3/4 – 4/4 groove that Golden Brown has. The upright bass sound is sequenced from Logic, and the piano part was played in using one of the piano sounds from a Nord Electro 5D. Then I played the sax part over the top (I play a King Zephyr alto and for this I used a hard rubber Yanigasawa mouthpiece rather than my usual bright Guardala).

The video was then edited using the clip I’d taken the drum loop from.” — Laurence Mason


This interview delves deeper. First imagined as a bit of fun, once embedded in Youtube, sufficient hits drew it to the attention of Paul Murphy, influential on the UK jazz scene, and it swiftly became available as a record to download or buy. Under the name, groan, of 'Take Vibe'. (With, on the flip, an equally iconic take on the Police's 'Walking on the Moon'.)


So, what else has Mason been up to? Initially a whole album was projected and, who knows, maybe it still is, lockdown possibly casting a cloud of best laid plans etc. I would certainly be interested.

Get Vibe



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