Take Five

The Dave Brubeck Quartet
Take Five

“Take Five” is one of the most well-known songs in the history of jazz music. In 1959, the Dave Brubeck Quartet released “Time Out”, an amazing album with “Take Five” as its most popular song. There isn’t one single reason why “Take Five” became so popular, but rather there are many. It required the collaborative talents of all four members of the quartet to create such a great flowing song. Dave Brubeck brought his expertise with the piano. Paul Desmond produced his amazing saxophone sound, along with his composition talents in writing the song. Gene Wright provided an excellent bass backbeat. Joe Morello brought his amazing talents on the drum set to give the song exactly what it needed. All of these elements were in full force in producing this song.

Here’s an old video of the song performed live. I preferred a video over an mp3 because I wanted to “show” you why this band is so exceptionally talented. I’ll talk about the details after the video. First, watch it, see what you think, and try to pick out what you think makes this song so different from any other jazz chart.



First of all, the saxophone melody is very catchy. It’s something that makes you want to sing along before you have even heard the song all the way through. The other thing about the melody is that the saxophonist, Paul Desmond, is able to produce an incredibly clear tone. Every note he hits is exactly where it should be. This allows the melody to come out with a much stronger impact than if another musician were to play it. It also evokes a more powerful emotional response by having a more “beautiful” tone.

Besides the catchy melody, there’s something else that’s even more distinct (and famous) about this song. Have you noticed it yet? It’s in 5/4 time! (Which is the cause for the title) For those who don’t understand time signatures, that means that there are 5 beats in a measure. Most of the songs in the world are in 4/4 time, meaning that there are 4 beats for every measure. If you were to count the beats to a song (go ahead and try this if you are new) it would be 1, 2, 3, 4, | 1, 2, 3, 4, | 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. However, in “Take Five”, the song would be counted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc. This isn’t easy at all for a musician. The subconscious mind always wants to count in 4/4, since that’s the way they were taught and have been used to. It takes a lot more concentration and practice to be able to play a song in 5. That’s what makes this song unique.

Another distinct, and amazing, part of “Take Five” is in the works of the drummer, Joe Morello. Soloing is not an easy art to master, but Joe Morello was able to take it beyond mastery. Being able to invent rhythms and beats on the spot takes a lot of experience, background, and talent with any instrument in music. Morello somehow did all of this, in a 5/4 time signature. This means that he has just as much experience, background, and talent in a 5/4 signature as most great drummers do with the common 4/4 time.

Joe Morello isn’t considered an amazing drummer just because he’s able to play and solo in 5/4 time, though. He’s recognized because of his style as well. This is where the video comes in to play. Watch the drummer during his solo. He hardly seems phased by what he’s doing; he looks like he’s played the solo millions and millions of times before. Also, his arms are so “loose” in the sense that he doesn’t force anything out. It’s as if the rhythms he’s producing are coming naturally to him. This is what separates a lot of great drummers from the ones who have something to learn. Morello proves his experience and talent to us just by using his body language. It's truly amazing, if you ask me.

Watch the other three members of the quartet as well. Brubeck and Wright’s beats are incredibly solid. They know exactly where the beat is (even if it’s not in 4/4) and they hit all the notes as they should be played. The saxophonist is a lot like the drummer. As he enters in the song, introducing the melody to the audience, his fingers move along the saxophone as if what he’s playing is a breeze. He looks like he could do it in his sleep. Combine this with his already amazing tone and sound, and you get a great musician.

All of the musicians provide equally important elements to the song. Without Paul Desmond’s amazing saxophone work and genius melody, the song wouldn’t have gone where it has gone today. Without Dave Brubeck and Gene Wright provide a solid, catchy beat, the song would have crashed and burned. Lastly, without the amazing drumming provided by Joe Morello on the drums, the song would not display as much talent as it needed to in order to make it. “Take Five” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet is a true display of musicianship and what can be produced when four amazing players come together to form one sound.

Hard Trance

This style of trance is not extremely popular nowadays, but many uplifting trance and energy trance tracks today are starting to bring back the style. This type of trance existed about 7 to 9 years ago and was slowly unpopularized as break beats and other types of techno were introduced.

Uh Oh...

Artist: Fergie
Title: Big Girls Don't Cry ft. Sean Kingston

Listen to it here. OR watch it here.




This was the song I was listening to as I dodged a deer, went into the dirt, lost control of my car, and plowed into a tree. At the 2:44 mark of this song, Sean Kingston sings, " What should I do? I'm missing you and I feel so down. Now that you're gone I can't go on this must be the end". This was also the part that was playing as I gained some consciousness as my car sat on its side. The thought "What should I do... this must be the end" was floating in and out of my mind at that point.

The car stereo still works and the next song on the playlist is actually "Just Dreaming" by DJ Bigkid. This song with some other motivators allowed me to get a grip and climb to the back seat and exit the fuming vehicle. I made a post last week on "Just Dreaming". This experience really shows how songs can be motivating and uplifting enough to let you get a grip in the worst situations. The combination of strings, piano, and xylophone never fails to calm a person's mind.

DJ Loopy
Volume J
Sky High












Tracklist:
01. DJ Loopy - Intro (Loopy)
02. DJ Loopy - Islands (Loopy)
03. DJ Loopy - Take Control (Loopy & Stud)
04. DJ Loopy - Someone (Stevie So Fly)
05. DJ Loopy - Castles (Loopy & Stud)
06. DJ Loopy - Out Of Love (Filet MigNAM)
07. DJ Loopy - Drowning (Slim Tim & Fos ft Loopy)
08. DJ Loopy - Follow Me (Farm)
09. DJ Loopy - It's A Dream (Fos ft Slim Tim)
10. DJ Loopy - Rain (Loopy)
11. DJ Loopy - I Found Peace (Loopy)
12. DJ Loopy - So Long (Loopy)
13. DJ Loopy - The Way I Are (Loopy)
14. DJ Loopy - Is It Love (Loopy)
15. DJ Loopy - Desperate Religion (Loopy & Trippy)

Two tracks that I think are the best in this album:

1. Track 9 (Listen here): The constant xylophone ambient beat and the ambient during the breaks or short solos cause this trance-like, outer space feeling. Like the title suggests, it is kind of like a dream. Most of the time, when a title contains the word "dream", you can expect a very relaxed vibe in the song and very laid back. This track kept most of the original sounds and remixed some of the beats and ambients, but to keep the original sound of the vocals is highly respected because the DJ must then mix the beats and ambient to suit the vocals.
   
2. Track 14 (Listen here): The beat, tempo, ambients, and vocals create a very smooth song. The arrangement and clear sounds makes the track sound very fluid. At the middle of the song when the melody and bass has a volume increase, the vocals are gone so that it is not drowned out by the ambients and melody. After the quick melody and ambient break or solo, the vocals are introduced again, but the volume of the vocal is also increased to match that of the melody so nothing is drowned out. Most of the time when a DJ increases volume, the sound quality starts to get distorted, but DJ Loopy does a great job of equalizing everything so everything is balanced and results in a high quality track.

Overall, this album has very high quality sounds, no vocal is drowned out by the bass and melody. The arrangement to each song reflects a lot of effort to make the album sound clear and smooth. The happiest song in this album is Track 6 - Out of Love. When a song uses many high pitched sounds, including the vocals, the song tends to turn out to be a very festive and happy song. A con to this song is that, everything being happy makes understanding the track as a whole a very painstaking process. You will need to either just focus on the vocals or the melody one at a time to understand clearly what is sung.

The melody and vocals of this album being as good as they are is really a bonus to the main focus of the album. I've noticed that every track have a very clear bass line that is nicely matched with the surround sound effect. I'm not too familiar with the genre "beat", but that is what this album is categorized as. The beat consisting of mostly bass... I believe my statement about the focus being on bass is correct. Clear melody, clear vocals, and fluid yet changing beats make this an excellent album. This would be a 9 out of 10 on my scale because nothing ever gets boring due to changing beats and fun melodies. This album also contains tracks that are relaxing yet happy at the same time and some gives a space like, dreaming feeling. Also, I'm a big fan of clear vocals and smooth transitions from song to song that makes listening to the album enjoyable since it feels like one big song. A smooth transition from a relaxing song to a hyper happy song is very hard to do due to tempo and beat differences. The outro of a former song must be slowed or sped up and silenced to match the intro of the next. This sounds easy to do, but it is difficult. Just imagine trying to transition an opera song into a hip hop song.

Gateway Drugs

Kanye West
Stronger

You know what's tragic? Ask someone if they like Daft Punk and you might find out. The problem is certainly not that you'd get a no, it's that they probably don't even hardly recognize the name. If you're one of those people, then this post is for you.

But don't let me get too far into why Daft Punk is freaking awesome just yet, let's start far away and close in on the good stuff. That's not to say our Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper du jour isn't good stuff...

That's right, you've all heard it, most of you liked it, and a few of you undoubtedly were compelled to dance to it: Stronger by Kanye West. It's a song with a good beat, reasonable lyrics when compared to other hippity-hop (Soulja Boy is such a tragedy... please do not superman your hoes), and most importantly heavy sampling of Daft Punk's song, Harder Better Faster Stronger.

So if Stronger got you dancing, it stands to reason that with a title four times as long, Harder Better Faster Stronger would get you on the floor and out the roof. Here's a piece of the original. Clearly a song carrying different emotions, relying almost entirely on musical merit rather than lyrical.

Now, to mention Harder Better Faster Stronger and not mention that it samples another song itself might be a little mean. Cola Bottle Baby, by Edwin Birdsong, is the origin of some background that you mainly hear at the beginning. Daft Punk just did what Kanye later did to their song: they used a part of Cola Bottle Baby and remixed it into their own stuff to make it sound awesome.

I'm going to be writing about Daft Punk a lot in the next couple of weeks, and so I might have to reference the following video a few more times. It's just some examples of Daft Punk songs and clips of the songs whence the main samples came, and since Daft Punk does a lot of sampling of various songs made since the advent of synthesizers in funk, there's a lot of samples to speak of.

Guitar Hero

The guitar is one of the most unique instruments because of its incredible diversity. If there is a genre of music, there’s most likely a specific guitar style to fit perfectly with it. The reason behind this is that the guitar is a hybrid instrument. It combines the quality of a “natural” instrument with the power of computers and technology. I stretch to use the word “natural” to define an instrument, because all instruments are essentially manmade tools. However, when comparing digitized music and sounds to instruments utilized by humans themselves, “natural” seems to fit in quite well.

Guitars can connect to amplifiers, which are simply large boxes that take the sound of the guitar and make it louder, or “amplify” it. Since this sound must first be translated to an electrical signal and sent through a wire to the amplifier, computers (and pedals) are able to alter the sound. This is where the digital world combines with the natural world. Once the sound is converted to a signal, it can be bent, pulled, twisted, and reshaped to create any sound the artist wants. It is even possible to mimic that of a completely different instrument. This creates infinitely many possibilities for tones and styles to be created with the guitar, and it’s this reason that the guitar’s diversity can fit in with any genre of music.

As I said earlier, each genre has its own style. Basically, a genre defines a set of boundaries that the tone produced from the guitar must fit in to. Heavy rock songs usually distort the signals to produce fuzzy, crackly, screaming tones, which are perfect for the loud and hard tendencies of rock music. Funk songs require an entirely different tonality. In your mind, try to think of any funk song. More likely than not, you’re thinking of an upbeat, clean, “wah” type of guitar sound. The sound comes out as smooth (or clean of crackling and fuzz) and usually intentionally wavers from the desired note.

Believe it or not, jazz has its own standards for guitar as well. When most people think of jazz, they don’t even hesitate to remove the guitar from the overall sound. This is probably because the most popular jazz hits don’t FEATURE the guitar, but just because the guitar isn’t featured, that doesn’t mean the guitar doesn’t play a critical role in the group’s mix. In jazz, rhythm is the key component. A guitarist is recurrently found laying down the time along with the bassist and the drummer. The good guitarists are the ones who are able to venture out from the simple time, create improvised rhythms, and still maintain a solid sense of the beat.

Now I suppose you want to know who these “good guitarists” are. In my opinion, one of the greatest guitarists of all time is Pat Metheny, the front man of the “Pat Metheny Group”. He created one of the most unique and distinct sounds in all of jazz guitar history. Imagine what it would sound like if Carlos Santana was born in New Orleans and produced records in the 40s with the biggest jazz giants of the time. That’s what Pat Metheny sounds like. I’m assuming everyone knows of Santana. His songs have instantly recognizable, no matter who is singing. Santana usually finds popular singers to lead them on a single hit, while Carlos accompanies them with his distinct guitar tone and style. As soon as he starts playing, simply because of the specific recognizable way the sound is altered, Santana can be identified with whoever he plays with.

Pat Metheny provides the same amount of recognition with the sound that he produces. The only difference is that Santana and Metheny are working with two completely different genres, yet somehow they both manage to produce the distinct, amazing sounds that they do. Out of all of the songs I have on my iPod, as soon as the guitar starts playing on a Metheny chart, I instantly know what I’m listening to (I tend to throw my iPod on shuffle and see what it spits out at me).

Besides the distinct sound Metheny can produce, he also accomplishes a few more outstanding things. Distinctness isn’t everything. The noise from a dying cat can be considered distinct, but in no way does the awful sound qualify as decent music. Metheny is able to form the most creative solos out of nowhere, while maintaining a sense of rhythm within the band. He successfully manages to act as the rhythm section and metronome of the band, while being the leader and front man of the entire band.

Word hardly imply anything when describing music, unless the reader has a trained background in the field. Therefore I found a couple videos that demonstrate what I mean with Pat Metheny and his group:

This video displays Metheny’s incredible ability to lead his group, while still providing the pulse required to keep the song alive. Not only does it show that, but it shows how amazing of a player he really is:

This one immediately sets a groove with Pat acting as the rhythm section, giving 8^th note clicks on his guitar with a catchy rhythm. This allows the rest of the band to ease into the song, and it gives the keyboardist space to add his intro solos leading up to Metheny’s real entrance at about 3:45. Don’t mind the large hair, if it’s really that bad, just close your eyes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn3zIBBmXiU

Hopefully you’ve been able to pick up on the ingenuity of Metheny’s playing, along with his amazing ability with improvisation. If not, then you probably can’t even tell the difference between this and this.

Balanco Trio

Very rare Brazillian Bossa. Got the samples from Sabadabada a few years back. The trio did two records, Casa De Bamba in the 70's and Ritmo...Bossa...Balanco in 1965. Sorry, Its really really hard to find info about them. I will try to ask Saba for info in the near future.

Track 1 (sorry cant find correct name)

from Casa De Bamba circa 1970.

Some Best Selling Reocrds This Week

Some Best Selling Records This Week
(according to Juno Records)

Reflekt feat. Delline Bass - "Need To Feel Loved" (12" club mix)

Floor filler. Released in 05 and still on top. Tight beat and awsome vocals by Delline Bass. Does the main orchistral sample sound familiar? You might have heard it in the movie Road To Perdition.

Dubfire - "RibCage"

Just released intense beat by one of the members of Deep Dish. This will probably be one of the biggest club hits of the year. Catchy 808 drums and resonated hits and stabs sounds like jingling bones and are apparently driving clubs crazy. RibCage at Womb, Tokyo. I rest my case.

Pryda - "Muranyi"
For those that dont already know , Pryda is Eric Prydz record label. Nothing huge, but the synth line is catchy. I used to be a huge fan of Cirez D, another alias of Prydz, with some fresh house beats, but lately it seems like he has been producing too much, and I just hope he doesnt dry out. Apparently the record getting alot of attention from Carl Cox and Sasha, and other mainstream DJ's.

High Contrast - "If We Ever"

Some seriously fresh Drum and Bass from Hospital records. High Contrast just wont dry out. I Honestly dont understand how he doesnt run out of samples. I cought on with Racing Green about 2 years ago and have been hooked ever since. The vocals are from Diane Charlemagne, if your wondering.

"Till We Meet Again" (feat Inner City - Carl Craig remix)

Another great remix by Carl Crag, a producer based in Detroit. His style is very minimal in all of his remixes. He is also bringing back the deep deep kick that he used in his In The Tree's remix. In The Tree's just so happens to be Juno.co.uk 's best selling record of all time. Maybe this one will do good aswell.