AROIOS

I like what he did at the end of the intro: CHD Pro -064.mp3

Was listening to some YT playlist and heard this juicy piano "pumping" (starting from 3:58 below) that I assumed was done by Richard Tee. Turns out it was Dave Grusin. This is a side of his playing I'm not familiar with, is there any style Sensei Grusin doesn't play well?

I had the pleasure of hearing the backing track of Tony Bennett and Faith Hill's version of "The Way You Look Tonight" on a wedding a long while ago. I was lucky. Both of Tony and Faith are great singers for sure, but in the original recording, their voices were a total distraction from Jorge Calandrelli's beautiful arrangement. It was traditional, effective and elegant. Here's a snippet of a decent transcription of Jorge's work: https://www.karaoke-version.com/karaoke/tony-bennett/the-way-you-look-tonight-duet.html

Thanks for the thorough reply, brother. I too, preferred the studio version you shared. The first minute and half is quite enjoyable. Afterwards it became too "mechanical" for my rustic ears, as do most Baroque pieces.

Both tunes sounded very boring to my crude ears, just like Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert. I'm genuinely curious what you guys found intriguing in these two pieces.

jazzpiano88 and ReezeKeys both know what's up. Back in 2015, the copywriters and graphic designers around me had very similar responses to the self-assured brothers above, when I told them it's just a matter of time Deep Learning is gonna replace them professionally. "A.I. will 'NEVER' challenge our creativity." is what they said. It only took 8 years for Large Language Models and Generative AI to seriously threaten their revenue streams. 😃

The short piece at 8:09 is actually enjoyable, more so than 99% of the garbage on most charts today. If that's any indication of our AI overlord's potential, I'm all for it.

We are all just atoms optimizing for the continuation of our genetic code. What we call "love", "lust", "care", "fairness"...etc, are all just result of that process. And that optimization often goes absurd places when the "signals" and the "substance" have long de-coupled. This story about beetles obsessing over beer bottles serves as a perfect reminder: https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/06/19/193493225/the-love-that-dared-not-speak-its-name-of-a-beetle-for-a-beer-bottle

While Beato's interviews are enjoyable, I never found him a great "educator". Scrolling 10 pages through his YT videos, I don't see a single title hinting at anything "educational" that interests me. I'm not being difficult, a short video from Matt Johnson often makes my day. And my reaction to vast majority of Beato's "What Makes This Song Great" series has been a consistent "Who T F Said It's Great?"

Speaking of arranging, there has been a trend of moving from the "Poppier" arrangements of the 80's/90's to a more acoustic sound. This happened to Bob James, David Benoit, Russell Ferrante and many others. While there's nothing wrong with a simpler setup, my ears get bored after a while. It's like stripping away the seasoning from a prime rib. Nostalgia perhaps, but the original version of Restoration is more enjoyable for me personally.

That's really weird. Anyone still interested, just msg me with a burner email address and I'll send it to you.

Let's see how long this one will last. Password for the zip file is keyboardcorner https://file.io/cF7sr1E2XgPz

Here you go: https://file.io/g9vSGt2QimTj

After decades of procrastination, finally got around to transcribing the Clav on this one. All the other instruments were extremely simple, so I laid them down as well. The mojo of this groove really came from the beautiful interplay among all the parts. And, of course, the beautiful voice of Michael McDonald I Keep Forgettin' 1.5.mp3

Our tastes on harmony align pretty well and I suspect you ran across some of the more boring Funk tracks like the one OP posted. Funk as a genre can be pretty diverse, ranging from James Brown to Parliament to Chaka Khan to Janet Jackson to Red Hot Chili Peppers. And they sound vastly different in 1)melody, 2) harmony and 3) timbre/instrumentation. The only common thread among all types of Funk music is 4) rhythm. Funk is one of the most interesting innovations in rhythm in the 20th century. Popular music would have been so boring if we didn't have the influences from Funk. This tune shows the more melodic and harmonically rich side of Funk, I would be surprised if you find it equally boring. 👇

For folks interested in Sax patches, YAMAHA has some decent sax sound on their arranger boards. The "Sweet! Tenor Sax" patch I used in the two quick demos below sounded amazing when they first came out almost 30 years ago. The TYROS line have added some beautiful "Super Articulation" sax sounds since. Sweet! Tenor Sax 1.mp3 Sweet! Tenor Sax 2.mp3

Founder/CEO Mr. Stefano Lucato is an excellent composer too. I love this demo tune he wrote. Brings me right back to late 70's/early 80's when this type of orchestral Sophisti-Pop was much more common.

Audio Modeling (formerly named Sample Modeling) has been on my radar for a while. The expressiveness of their instruments is simply incredible. And what a nice coincidence to have a room full of amazing Italian music nerds!

They've put out a lot of great tunes, but I've always found their signature machine-gun straight 16th bass notes the least Funky thing imaginable.

Avant-garde

Love Louis Cole but this one sounds like a contrived attempt at mixing Stevie Wonder's gravy with Moonchild's wine. Both are uniquely rich and strong, but I'd rather enjoy them separately.

Excellent Blues, but his time is sandpaper to my crude ears. Sounds like my DAW when the OS hits 110% load, I feel bad for the folks who ever tried to dance to this.

I love Debussy, Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Steely Dan, Duke, Yes, Parliament, The Struts... equally. And I've always found it idiotic to divide music by periods and generations. A Cmaj9 is a Cmaj9, whether it's played on a harp, Rhodes, or a Strat; a shuffle is a shuffle, whether it's played on an axatse, a set of Ludwig, or a TR-808. Folks who base their musical consumption on "timeliness" of a tune, are one of the biggest reasons so much annoying/idiotic noise fill our air, while tons of great music become neglected and forgotten.

Nothing to feel embarrassed about, brother. Music is a very personal experience. Don't ever let my (or anyone's) snarky comments hold you back from enjoying what you like.

Jazz aside, weren't Easy Listening (as a genre) way more sophisticated in harmonies and changes than what Beatles brought to the table? Edit: Never mind. I soon realized that Easy Listening was much less relevant to your particular situation playing in a rock&roll band at the time.