Local band or national bands with horns

[Dan O]

I went to see a band last night that I had heard alot about . Group called Cary Ziegler ( crack the sky ) .

 

Fantastic and the thing I like the most is a good horn section ! Chicago , Gabriel and one of my Favorites .....TOWER OF POWER !

 

I love bands with horn sections . I played baritone horn . I wish i learned trombone instead !

 

Tower of Power , Chicago ...are a few groups that come to mind ..... what other groups with horns has been successful ? dano

[Geosync]

Blood Sweat and Tears, Sky, Brass Construction, Ides of March, Mom's Apple Pie, Grand Central Station, Average White Band, New Birth, Sly and the Family Stone, P Funk All Stars, Al Green, Otis Redding, The Isley Brothers, Dr. John, The Blues Brothers, James Brown.

 

There are so many, these just pop into mind.

[Dan O]

Opps ....forgot about BST . it's interesting that you have to look back that far !

I guess Brian Seltzer Band would need to mentioned !

 

dano

[CP]

The best R&B group ever: EARTH, WIND & FIRE. Also the Ohio Players.

[Pat Azzarello]

Top five for me were:

Tower of Power - Also played with a lot of other artists from Little Feat (Spanish Moon) to Huey Lewis.

 

Chicago and Blood Sweat and Tears - Great stuff

 

Earth Wind and Fire, to me, had the best R&B horn section (love Tom Tom's arrangements). They also played on other peoples stuff (most notably Phil Collins)

 

Brecker Brothers - Cool stuff

 

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy has some great stuff.

 

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes had some great tunes, though never realized their popular potential.

 

Blues Brothers Band - though not really original, they were great players playing simple parts and executing them well.

 

Jaco Pastorious has an album or two with some great horn players.

 

Jerry Heys' session horn section can be heard on a HUGE number of albums.

 

The Tubes had a horn section around for a few albums (or maybe they were studio cats too).

 

KC and the Sunshine Band, Average White Band, The Ohio Players, and a host of disco era bands.

[BP3]

Originally posted by PatAzz:

[QB]The Tubes had a horn section around for a few albums (or maybe they were studio cats too).

 

[QB]

I believe it was the Seawind Horns that did those Tubes song. The song "Tip of my Tongue" had one of the baddest horn arrangemants I've ever heard. Maurice White had something to do with that song as I recall.

 

Carey Zigler's Expensive Hobby is one of the better bands in the Baltimore area. Certainly worth a listen if you are near. I worked with Carey for a number of years with a group called Band of a Thousand Names. Paul Reed Smith was one of the original members of that one. I also had the pleasure of working with Carey when he was in Edgar Winter's band in the mid 80s. Carey's quite a fine bass player.

[Mark Zeger]

In the mid-late '70s in the Hudson Valley, there was a strong horn section band called RALPH. Each band member doubled or tripled on other instruments during their sets. They were a cover band, but as a closer would do an jaw-dropping arrangement of the 1812 Overture.

[lrossmusic]

I love bands with horn sections . I played baritone horn . I wish i learned trombone instead !

That's interesting. I'm curious why? Nothing like a good bari sound on the bottom. I play trombone and always love it when there's a bari in the section.

 

All the horn sections mentioned already are 'out of sight'. Did someone already mention the Canadian Brass? Those guys are fabulous also.

 

Viva la horn players!!!

[D_dup3]

& of course, a million&one jazz bands!

 

Then there was that one-man-horn-section Rahsaan Roland Kirk!

[meccajay]

For me it's always been..

 

1)James Brown's JB's-obviously

 

2)Parliament(circa '77)- Nothin like Fred and Maceo together...NOTHING!

 

(tied)2)Tower Of Power- Just listen...perfection!

 

3)Seawind- That blend and sound was very unique, ask Quincy Jones.

 

4)Earth Wind & Fire- Great brilliance and majesty in that sound!

 

5)Chicago- Great sound, but never blew me away so to speak.

 

6)Brass Construction- Oh hell yeah!

 

7)PFunk Allstars- Current version features Greg Boyer and Benny Cowen's, originally from Lil Benny And The Masters(DC Go-Go fame). No slouches here!

 

8)KC & The Sunshind Band- Can't forget the 'dancin' horns!

 

9)The Ohio Players - Would be higher but they tended to suck live, but GREAT studio horns.

 

....Ok Im begining to see the wisdom that there are just too many to name!

[Dan O]

/b]

That's interesting. I'm curious why? Nothing like a good bari sound on the bottom. I play trombone and always love it when there's a bari in the section.

 

Viva la horn players!!! [/QB]

 

Baritone horn was hard to play in jazz band ! dano

[Superbobus]

Some great horn work can be found on records of the Machito Orchestra, Fania All Stars and lots of other Cuban music. TOP, EWF, BST, JB Horns, P-funk... YEAH!

Check out the horn arrangements of Prince. Sexy Motherfucker must be the most famous one.

[CP]

How come you don't have horn sections today. Even when you go to a concert you don't see horn sections. In some of the bands named, I always thought the horns distinguished them from other bands. What a shame. I think that's what separates todays music from what I grew up listening to in the 70's & 80's. Man, Meccajay, the bands you named take me back to a time ....

I'm glad I am not the only one who loves that kind of music.

 

Good topic Dano!!!!

[lrossmusic]

Baritone horn was hard to play in jazz band ! dano

I've never tried to play baritone sax but I doubt taht you'd find trombone any easier. OTOH maybe you would if you have a natural brass embouchure.

 

BTW Pepper Adams, Harry Carney, and Gerry Mulligan are some of my all time favoites when it comes to baritone sax. Claire Daly, a female now in NYC, is a contemporary player who is keeping the art alive and well also. Now you have made me go and pull out some of my old jazz tapes with some good baritone sax.

[CP]

One of the best songs I've heard with a horn section is Earth, Wind & Fire's "Getaway". Great sound.

[burlingame2]

The singer was Lydia Pense on an album titled In Cold Blood and the horn section contributed greatly to the sound.

[Mark Zeger]

Almost forgot:

 

"2-Tone" ska bands like Madness, The Specials, The English Beat, and UB40. In some cases, the horn "section" was just a single sax or trombone player, but it filled the same role as a trumpet/sax/trombone unit.

 

Later Bob Marley and The Wailers records like "Kaya" and "Survival".

 

Fela.

[Mark Zeger]

Originally posted by lrossmusic:

Baritone horn was hard to play in jazz band ! dano

I've never tried to play baritone sax but I doubt taht you'd find trombone any easier. OTOH maybe you would if you have a natural brass embouchure.

 

BTW Pepper Adams, Harry Carney, and Gerry Mulligan are some of my all time favoites when it comes to baritone sax. Claire Daly, a female now in NYC, is a contemporary player who is keeping the art alive and well also. Now you have made me go and pull out some of my old jazz tapes with some good baritone sax.

You guys would probably love Howard Johnson. Great tuba player, doubles on bari sax (and other horns), leads a unique tuba band, Gravity. I think of him on The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and Jaco's "Word of Mouth" album.

[Superbobus]

How come you don't have horn sections today.

Money, money, money! Why spend lots of money on a horn section while you can get horns out of a sound canvas?

Damn, I sound like a wrong manager!

[lrossmusic]

Why spend lots of money on a horn section while you can get horns out of a sound canvas?

Ah come on!! Compared to the sound of real horns the sound canvas sounds like ducks quacking.

 

Electonic pianos and drums sound a lot closer to the real thing than electronic horns especially sax and trombone. I would even include strings but I just listened to some real strings and of course there's nothing like the real thing. Some of those string patches do sound pretty good if they are used on sustained parts. Once the part start moving a little though it easy to hear the magic that is missing.

[Jojje]

Now hang on, a baritone horn is more like a mini tuba and is something completely different from a baritone saxophone even if you call a saxophone a horn too.

[Superbobus]

Ah come on!! Compared to the sound of real horns the sound canvas sounds like ducks quacking.

Ddin't you see the rolleyes smiley? It's not me who's saying this but I know people in charge of big money who are thinking like this. What a world, eh?

[lrossmusic]

Now hang on, a baritone horn is more like a mini tuba and is something completely different from a baritone saxophone even if you call a saxophone a horn too

As the young folks say MY BAD .

 

I misread Dano's post. I was thinking about baritone sax. And yes I do consider baritone sax a horn.

 

Sorry for the mix up.

[lrossmusic]

Ddin't you see the rolleyes smiley? It's not me who's saying this but I know people in charge of big money who are thinking like this. What a world, eh?

Superbobus, you are so right. And thanks for hipping me to what the rolleyes smiley means.

[Superbobus]

A okay dude.

[meccajay]

You know, speaking of Local bands with HORNS. I just remembered the last time I was in LA in '98. There was this band called GRAVY I'd seen at Luna Park. There were the most bad-ass band I'd seen out there, and probably in my top 3 of all time. Anyway, they had one hell of a horn section....phat and too nasty!

 

Anybody evey heard of them? If so what are they up to these days??

[lrossmusic]

Anybody ever heard of a group called the LA Boppers. Thet had a record out probably 20 years ago or more. Anyway if I remember correctly they had a bitchin horn section.

[Dan O]

Originally posted by Jojje:

Now hang on, a baritone horn is more like a mini tuba and is something completely different from a baritone saxophone even if you call a saxophone a horn too.

Thanks for the clarifying this ! dano

[meccajay]

Originally posted by lrossmusic:

Anybody ever heard of a group called the LA Boppers. Thet had a record out probably 20 years ago or more. Anyway if I remember correctly they had a bitchin horn section.

I sure do remember them. Damn they were nice!

 

I havent heard them since my childhood, and even then I'd only heard 2 songs from them, but I'll never forget to sound!!

 

The one song was like a "Bop Do-waaah" line sung on the vocals, there a tight drummer doing Barkay's type drum-n-foot rolls....with a phase shifter on the kit, and a pretty wicked bassline on Music Man bass.

 

The horns... The only way to descibe it is what I'd call liquid horns, could have been the effects, but it was too long ago to remember how they got the sound, it was prolly somethin simple. Anyway, you would'nt happen to have a copy of there album laying around there somewhere would you? Im wondering...

 

Why is that sound something I have to have in my collection? Why has that group haunted my memory for all these years?

 

Why am I enjoying this thread so much?

[lrossmusic]

The one song was like a "Bop Do-waaah" line sung on the vocals, there a tight drummer doing Barkay's type drum-n-foot rolls....with a phase shifter on the kit, and a pretty wicked bassline on Music Man bass.

Meccajay,

 

I think I might have a cassette dub of the "Bop Do-waaah" track but I'm going to have to search for it. I never had any of their albums but that one track left a deep impression. I think I even started a transciption of the tune for my band at the time but I don't believe I ever finished it.

 

Anyway, if I find either I'd be more than happy to send you a copy.

 

It never ceases to amaze me how much exceptionally great stuff never got a whole lot of widespread recognition.