Wolfgang Lonien

Snarky Puppy live in Paris, in exactly the same lineup of people as they played here in Frankfurt. But the list of songs is very different, except of some of their “hits” of course (they didn’t play “Lingus” here for instance).

What I also like here are the shots which show the audience – a few people more than the 1.300 people which attended the concert here. And boy, these parisiens and parisiennes know a good groove when they hear it; love their reactions!

Snarky Puppy is very much a band of musicians and for musicians – so not everyone likes them. But again, there’s no average age of the audience, all kinds of kids from under 20 up to old guys (like me) of 60 and above. Which probably shows that although the band members are young (some are less than half my age), and although they’re standing on the shoulders of giants (of my youth, I remember quite a number of good jazzrock bands), there’s still a market for good old handmade music. Which gives kinda hope for the future, after all that disco-hiphop-sampling-stealing-whatever “dark times” of computer-produced snippet stuff… Oh, and the instruments: there’s also nothing better than the originals, from the good old B3s, Minimoogs and Rhodes pianos up to the brass and the violin.

Long live Snarky. Ordered their “We like it here” CD/DVD yesterday, from their own GroundUpMusic website, and it’s on its way already. And cheaper than at the big online retail stores, even if you count in the shipping from New York.

So please do as Michael says here: support the musicians. Especially the younger ones.

Thank you for reading.

So yesterday I was at a concert of my current favourite band and 2 times Grammy winners, Snarky Puppy. In case you’re interested, you can purchase the whole concert here (FLAC). And on one of their pictures you can even see me…

So – how was the concert? In two words: good. LOUD. Guess it was ok at the mixing console, close to which I stood later, but more at the front of the stage, the sound volume over the whole spectrum (in my opinion, especially the higher parts) was VERY high.

They let their guest start first, which was the really sweet Becca Stevens. She presented some songs from her latest album Regina with a little help from “Maz” Maher (voc), and Michael League (b, voc) from Snarky.

And after a short break to move their stuff off the stage, Snarky played, with

Chris Bullock – tenor sax, flute, & alto flute
Mike “Maz” Maher – trumpet & flugelhorn
Justin Stanton – trumpet, Fender Rhodes, & Prophet
Bobby Sparks – organ, clavinet, Minimoog, and Motif
Zach Brock – violin
Bob Lanzetti – guitar
Michael League – bass & Moog bass
Larnell Lewis – drums
Nate Werth – percussion

performing

1. GØ
2. Beep Box
3. Outlier
4. Thing of Gold
5. Tarova
6. Grown Folks
7. Tio Macaco
8. Young Stuff
9. Shofukan
10. Sleeper

I was pretty close to the stage until about 22:00 (10pm), after which I was out for a short cigarette break – and so I heard the rest of the concert from the entrance which was about as far from the stage as the mixer – where the sound was much more pleasing. Michael’s Markbass Casa was still pressing through his 8×10″ cabinet, but now the highs weren’t as shrill anymore. Much better.

The audience was about 1300 people, and as usual with Snarky, aged from under 20 to over 60. And also as usual, some of their greatest hits were sung by the audience, like “Thing of Gold”, or “Shofukan”, or even the only cover song of the evening, Steve Wonder’s “Always” by Becca & her band, where “Maz” turned out to be a really good vocalist as well.

Definitely a band to hear. Don’t miss them.

P.S.: Just downloaded their concert, and I’m glad I did – it’s awesome. The recorded sound must have come from the mixing console; it’s much better than it was close to the stage (and also better than at the entrance door of the hall). So if you haven’t done so already, listen to them at least on Youtube – but I can definitely also recommend that Frankfurt concert.

Oh, and by the way: if you looked at the linked photo above, did you also see the Focusrite interface on that Hammond B3? It’s a smaller version of the one I have…

One song, so many different interpretations. I showed this one already:

Which is from this album:

Here are just a few more:

The original, in French:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLlBOmDpn1s

Which is from this movie, also in French:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kz3hfZc-Q

There are so many more versions. Find out more about it on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn_Leaves_%281945_song%29 (English)
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Feuilles_mortes (French)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn_Leaves (German)

or here:

http://www.jazzstandards.com/compositions-0/autumnleaves.htm

Enjoy…

Update from Sat, May 20th, 2017): Here’s another one, played beautifully on a solo Godin guitar by Walter Rodrigues Jr.:

… here he is, together with Cannonball Adderley on sax:

Playing “Les feuilles mortes“, better known as “Autumn Leaves”.

Enjoy.

No sir.

1. The first piece you can see here proves that you don’t need 4 strings – 3 are enough, if you open and end a piece on a gimbri.

2. You also don’t need a lot of chords – sometimes one chord is enough to totally rock da house. Hear the second one, which Marcus announced in perfect French.

3. and 4. They continue with Miles’ “Tutu“. Marcus, who is about two and a half years younger than me played that in 1986 with Miles, and here (at around the 33 minute mark) they swing like the devils, and play some really nice hard bop and cool jazz lines, just as if Miles would be present. And during the bass solo they switch to Marcus’ own “Blast”, the opening track from his 2008 album “Marcus” (and also on his 2007 album “Free“).

No, you don’t need much. Just keep practising for some 40+ years, and play as much as you can. See his discography.

Enjoy.