tapes

Seriously, Heart of Mine (1989) is a SUCH a fantastic pop/soul album! Not only the songs you mentioned (covered by Scaggs / Cetera / Jarreau), but also at least: "The Real Thing", "Saying It's Over", "Even Now". Those melodies get stuck in your head for days! He was mostly known for "What You Won't Do For Love" (1978), and there's no denying that it's still an incredible song.

An utterly pointless product, IMO. 61 semi-weighted keys (not a true ”stage instrument” without 73/88 weighted), poor polyphony, limited controls. A lot of people have Arturia’s V set already and a powerful enough Mac/laptop. Add some small audio interface and a Keystep 88 MKII and you’re much better off. Granted, the total cost for all that is of course a lot more than what they’re asking for here.

Off-topic, but I think it's Dann Huff playing the guitar part. Here's a video where he breaks it down - so good.

Funny, I never even noticed the odd long decay on that bass until hearing that isolated stem! Back then they used to combine FM (DX and Synclavier) with a MiniMoog, like on 'Thriller'. The bass sounds hilarious by itself, but Foster wrote such great songs.

I didn't really like Everything Must Go (2003) when it first came out, but it's grown on me. "Godwhacker" is an amazing tune. "Last Mall" too. So is Becker's "Slang of Ages", by the way!

And yet he sounds absolutely like himself, you wouldn’t think he was ill. Had both Herbie and Mehldau on that one, too. Some of my favorite tunes by him, too - like ”Tumbleweed” and ”The Mean Time”. One other fav is Time is of the Essence (1999). Elvin Jones, Bill Stewart, Larry Goldings (organ), Pat Metheny AND ”Tain” Watts. I saw him only once, back in 2001 with the Directions in Music super group (Hancock, Roy Hargrove), mostly for Herbie. I will remember it forever. But there are so many. With the Brecker Brothers: the live solos on ”Some Skunk Funk”, ”Song for Barry”, his tune ”Night Flight”…

I read it too, I recall he referred to each and everyone as ”cat”. To those laughing at his smooth jazz - just look at that house! Drives a new Rolls Royce too…

It was again one of those "classic Beato interviews" that is hyped up beyond belief in the comments...yet it was mostly McDonald talking. Beato didn't even get to ask about his classic solo album, If That's What It Takes (1982), with "I Keep Forgettin'" among many others. That album is like a who's who of L.A. session players.

Some really fantastic Rhodes soloing on this track! "Trip" from the album Ad-vo-cate, (1999) I've been recently getting really re-interested in this whole Y2K era of jazz, when a lot of artists combined drum loops and electronics with improvisation, so I have to check this out! He also played on Victor Bailey's (R.I.P.) 1989 album Bottom's Up. I've always loved the track "In The Hat", even though Jim is more in a supporting role obviously. Such a killer tune. Sounds weatherreportish, but not really.

I’m not really his fan, but Robert Glasper said it best: ”I’ve spent my life learning to play at this level - you can’t expect me to be a programmer too”. Greg Phillinganes says the same thing. The sounds inspire new music for guys like Jam & Lewis. In the early 00’s it was super common to abuse those Motif/Fantom/Triton presets to death, especially in hip hop and r&b (The Neptunes, Timbaland come to mind).

Can someone post a source? Can’t find anything online; I’m guessing it’s on FB, but I’m not there. I knew him a bit and even took a couple lessons with him. Sad news, if true.

Thanks! I’ve never seen a comprehensive preset list like this before. I know he was a preset hound, Dr. Fink also confirmed this in a KB magazine interview back then. I’ve always heard the ”Batman” (1989) album was done with mostly D-50 presets, but I’ve never seen any actual presets mentioned before this.

A couple of the most popular search terms on YouTube now seem to be "jazz music" or "jazz for studying". While this is very interesting, I'd say that for a lot of casual listeners music is mostly sound, rhythm (the beat) and lyrics. But they definitely don't have a clue what's going on under the hood. So in that sense something that "sounds jazzy" is jazz in their mind. Even though the core aspect of it - improvisation - might be missing completely. A lot of people think that Smooth Jazz is jazz, even though it is technically instrumental R&B. (By the way, don't knock them Swedes - a lot of great jazz came from there, and the Nordics/Scandinavia 😄)

Anyone else already sick of the whole "A.I. does this & that" (and usually not very succesfully)? Like, I'm sorry - there will never be another Bill Evans, or Miles Davis, and just vaguely replicating some sonic character isn't it.

Is he, though? He's OK. Don't get me wrong, I do like him - and I like listening to all the big name studio / pop / jazz people he's managed to get - but for the most part it's the guest doing the talking (as it should be, of course). Rarely does he have anything worthwhile to add, nor are his questions that hard hitting. The Jarrett interview is a good example - yes, it was poignant and all that, but it was due to Keith, not Beato per se. His emotional reaction to seeing himself in his prime was surprising and moving, but he was also a guy who basically considered himself a god among mortals in his heyday. That said, it is a massive achievement what he's (Beato) done to become this popular, in his 60's no less. He gets very deep sometimes, and the guests (Mehldau is a recent example) go too - yet he gets a huge audience. I bet his random viewer "tuning in" didn't even know who Keith Jarrett was at first. I think my favorite thing is when the guest realizes that "hey, we're here to seriously talk about music and not personal celebrity stuff". Like in the Sting interview. A man of a million "celebrity type" interviews, he was visibly reserved and nervous at first, but completely relaxes when he realizes they get to start talking about songwriting, song structures etc.