70-year old Japanese lobby security guard just walked in as I had this playing...he smiled at me as usual but don't think he was ready to bust a move with me...thanks, Alex!

Didn't they use this beat in one of the freestyle sessions in the Eninem movie?

Showbiz!
A.G.!

I mixed this beat with an early Common song at DCC. Man I miss these cats!!

That one in 8 Mile was the "Nyte Time" remix by DJ Premier.

I knew they were collaborating on some stuff together again, but they've been on their own for the last decade. Crazy, but there are plenty other duos that left their marks and then kinda faded to the back on their own (Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, 3rd Bass, etc.)

Bless you, Alex! You'll keep me awake all night with this kinda stuff! >;)

well, we all know how much i abhor rap/hip-hop/etc. (sorry guys), but i sure am glad there's a new post up! that said, kudos to Alex for the apt title of "great balls of fire" - that was pretty classic, i must say!

tokyo: speak no evil - does it get any better than that? i don't think so! we play the 1st 2 tunes in our jazz trio sometimes...

chyll: go to bed! i need to follow, as i've got freaking jury doody stoopid early in the AM!!! ugh. : /

[4] Oh man, I'm so sorry about that. I was waiting for my niece to catch up on the latest comments. I warned Alex I would have waaaaay too much fun with a topic like that, and now I'm causing people to not get the sleep they need. My apologies, I'm off, seriously! G'nite! >;)

Thank you, I needed this today...

[4] one day you'll have to come over to the hip-hop side of the room..i'm not a huge fan like Alex or Chyll, but some amazing records in the genre, worth checking out..and much better than Rush! :)

Saw Shorter live two years ago, he was already 73yrs old and he just KILLED! damn, we need to get a side chat window on the Banter for all our music chat

[5] 'tis all good, my friend! sleep well, chyll!!!

[7] JT (jazz tokyo!) - i'm sorry, but i'll never make it to the hip-hop side. EVER! and watch it on RUSH, bub!!! ; )

hey, look, i am a MASSIVE thrash/speed metal fan and would love some threads here devoted to Forbidden/Xentrix/Testament/etc., but it ain't gonna happen and that's cool...

yeah man, shorter is still killing it!!! was it will calhoun on drums?

[8] no, it was the tour with Brian Blade.
on drummers..you know Manu Katche?? want to pick up his album on ECM from 2 years back but havn't yet..

Rush..i'll give it to you on the musicanship, fair enough! but can't dig Geddy's helium voice..

will give some speed metal a listen, send some pix? I listen to a LOT of excessively fast and abrasive free jazz so I can see some commonality there..

since this was a non-baseball post to start, we could go music for hours but be a good citizen and report awake and alive for jury duty!

oh WOW, brian blade & wayne shorter!!! wahoo!!! blade is a wonderful musician, man. i think i'm gonna go see the Five Peace Band the end of march. check out this lineup: Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Kenny Garrett, Christian McBride, Brian Blade. um...HOLY SHIT!!! i think it may have been Vinnie Colaiuta on drums for the Euro tour, i'm not sure. chick might be playing his elektric band synth-itar, but whatever - i don't think i can miss this concert!!!

of course, i know manu katche! GREAT pocket player. got famous w/ Peter Gabriel and Sting. i remember an old solo record of his, but not a recent ECM one.

speed metal rules!!! that said, i was just listening to Oregon (amazing world music) on my ipod and spun a coupla Lee Morgan cd's today! : )

i hope i get sent home early from jury duty tomorrow...

the Five Peace Band..HOLY SHIT INDEED!!! that is a serious multi-generational all-star band..when did they start playing together? is it Chick or Johnny Mac's band? you can't miss it..

yes, Katche I knew first from Gabriel and Sting. I think his ECM set got great critical acclaim but somehow I never even heard it in the store..

I got a whole list of great West African tunes/albums/musicians for you man, the percussion would blow you away..

i love west african stuff! i have a good book on it and have studied that drumming. i do a ton of latin/afro-cuban/west african playing. the bass player i work with does a boatload of it, as well. i think there's a youtube clip of me playing a samba (brazilian) somewhere. i'll send it to you offline one day... i'd love to check out the west african stuff you're talking about!

there's some great stuff on ECM!

i don't know much about the Five Peace Band. a buddy/old student of mine just hipped me to it. he owns a cool record shop in town and if i get outta jury duty early enough, i plan on stopping by there...

"well, we all know how much i abhor rap/hip-hop/etc"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well.... possibly that's because you are a professional musician?
And maybe because some of this trash actually uses a DRUM MACHINE!

Fear not, my talented friend.... this stuff makes my skin crawl.
It is an insult to the power and beauty that is music.
I have to think this stuff makes Stevie Wonder throw up in his mouth a little. In the '60s and '70s, Black music was so amazing. Stevie, the Temptations, Diana, the Isleys and just so many others. THE voice behind the Four Tops. Even Michael had some great stuff way back when. Great stuff.

Beautiful Black men is colored suits... movin and grooving together. Harmony, melody, rhythm and soul.

OK. Maybe Rap is an art form (of such). Getto poetry. The voice of dissent? I know it has value... it just ain't music.

What happened? Is this crap out today supposed to represent 'Black Music'? Back when the Beatles, the Cream, Simone and Garfunkel, Santana and dozens and dozens of great bands were hitting the scene, Motown was also producing fantastic stuff. Rock was hitting it's zenith, and Black music was right there. Like the Beatles, much of it will never grow old.

What happened thelarmis? What happened to Black music???

Alex... you need to get 'Innervisions' and listen to it 100 times or so.

[14] You know, sometimes I hear early Santana... those BLAZIN' percussive rhythms, and think..... this is the most amazing percussion in the world. I believe Ginger Baker was influenced heavily by African percussion. Rhyming Simon has his time.

African drumming is actually the 'origins' of 'drumming'? Yes? No?
But I gotta tell ya..... when I hear old Santana... the speed, energy, composition... just amazing. Even early Gloria Estefan had some blazing stuff. There is something about Latin-Rock that is sooo appealing.

OldYanksFan, I respect your opinion but disagree strongly though it'd be a waste of time to try and convince you otherwise. But just because I love hip hop what makes you think that I haven't listened to Innervisions more than 100 times, or the records of Clifford Brown, or Art Pepper, or Fats Waller or Al Green or the Stones or Beatles for that matter?

[15] I guess it's partially because most of your musical posts are Hip/Hop-Rap related.

While Rock is a very 'rudimentary' form of music, from Billy Joel on down, there are many classically trained and schooled musicians who express themselves through 'Rock'.

I wonder if you went to Berkley, or any other place where dedicated musicians congregate, how many of those folk would express themselves through Hip-Hop/Rap?

But the test of 'great Music' is always time. Great classical pieces have been around from almost 2 centuries. I can listen to a 45 year Beatles song and still be blown away by it... have no idea if it's 'current' or not, because it's timeless. I will guess people will still listen to the Beatles in 100 years, and it will still feel current... regardless of what is in vogue at the time.

I just have to wonder how much 'Hip-Hop/Rap' will be admired 50 years from now? I mean, what happens when there are no more old vinyl albums around to scratch?

Ya know- It's all good, baby.....except for perhaps new-age music (yuck!!!)and musak. You gotta like a baseball blog that mentions Ginger Baker. The Five Piece Band sounds beyond.

Saw Shorter years ago at Bradley's. That was a great venue.

[15] Thanks B. And for that matter, there are a vast collection of "respected musicians" who appreciate the depth of hip hop and have contributed to the genre in one way, shape or form...

Ron Carter played bass on A Tribe Called Quest's "The Low End Theory", which was strongly considered a jazz album, or at least one of the best examples of jazz-hip hop fusion...

Miles Davis teamed with producer Easy Mo-B for "The Doobop Song", an easy piece but well regarded at the time.

You might think that's piffle... so what?

Some can trace (or even blame) this lady for elements of hip hop that evolved after her time (and I'm sure some people think it still sounds like this when they try to listen to rap)...

And check out the easy fusions of this series... (I'm picking this up!)

And let me not even start with Guru and Jazzmatazz...

Guys... I'm not trying to play ya'll, but it's really easy to find what's good and avoid the crap, even in the styles you talk about the most. You already know the drill, all you have to do is look for it. >;)

Oh, and before I go... >;)

[16] You've got to be kidding... No comment.

DJ's already don't use vinyl anymore. They scratch cds or facsimilles of them on their laptop Serrato programs. Hip Hop, at least from the golden age of 86-94 will endure in the same way rock has. I mean, who listens to the Mills brothers anymore? I do. Who listens to Doo Wop? Rap has been around for thirty years. That's way longer than swing was around for. Like it or not, this is no fad.

ah what a great way to start the morning, Alex I'm depending on you for some sort of Big L-10 years centric post in a couple of weeks.

oh yeah I'm new here, hi guys.

Big L! DITC, baby. Diamond D's first record is still one of my favorites.

I met Finesse in a record shop a few years ago and he's a HUGE Mariano Rivera fan.

"My style is tricky/ like spellin' Mississippi."

LOL

[20] Remember the Time/Life CD set they hawked late at night about classic R&B form the 50-70's, or the Classic Rock from the 60-80's? I got them. I listen to all that and more. I grew up swimming in Rachmaninoff and Bill Conti. If you listen carefully throughout hip-hop from early on to today, you'll notice a lot of others did, too.

Hip hop stands out for it's problems and crap songs because it's been exploited to death, especially by executive decision-makers who wouldn't know Run-DMC from Run-Run Shaw. You know I'm thoroughly critical of the dogmatic and sociopathic crap that's passed for hip-hop the past fifteen years, but that doesn't mean it's ALL like that.

My upstairs neighbors listen (blast) EXCLUSIVELY to crap-rap, so I like to drown them out with The Uncensored Metal channel on IO, some of which I actually like (check out Metalocalypes on Adult Swim). Again, it's not hard to find the good stuff. It's hard to avoid the bad stuff when so many others won't keep it to themselves, which I think is the root of all objection here, but that doesn't reflect on my opinion about the rest.

[21] Good name, friend. I wish he really was like that, but that's neither here nor there. Well, the rules are the same as Calvinball, just try to be respectful. And, same as always, don't expect much of an allowance >;)

Well.... While I don't know what it is, I assume there is a difference between Hip-Hop and Rap? Does Hip-Hop use drum machines? I'm an ex-drummer. Can you guess how I (and I'll guess thelarmis?) feel about drum machines? If instead of ARod, the Yanks had a batting machine bat cleanup, would you consider that baseball?

But I'm open-minded. Why not post a REALLY really good Hip-Hop tune. Something you think will endure. Of course, AW painted a Cambell's soup can and I guess people consider that art. This is very subjective stuff.

And thelarmis.... where are you dude? Figured you'ld have my back on this. I mean, I'm provoking Alex Belth here ( a daunting task!).

[25] To quote one of my idols growing up:

"Rap is something you do,
Hip-Hop is something you live."

You're being very disingenuous, OYF. You can't possibly ignore the links I put up earlier as examples of not only the connection between jazz and hip-hop, but also of how instruments and technology often work together or inspire each other. I would also add "Beat Box" from Art of Noise; though they were not a hip-hop group, they captured the essence of it in the mid-eighties.

And did you not notice Flava Flav wailing away quite competently on the drums in the end of the Anthrax/Public Enemy set? He can actually play at least eight different instruments very well; a band all by himself.

Here's something that's endured...

OYF..well, Alex and Chyll have done a great job trying to explain the appeal of hip-hop..can I just add the following?

"New" music is always rejected and scorned by the "elders"..for example:

there were RIOTS at the premier of Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring"
Louis Armstong called BeBop "Chinese music" (not a compliment from him)
those same BeBoppers 20 years later (Dizzy Gillespie, etc) said of Ornette Coleman that "he's jiving..he can't play his instrument"
everyone came down on Miles for his fusion years, now it's "classic"
older folks HATED Motown back then
need I go on??

one last point..the Hip-Hop era now vastly exceeds the "swing music" era..and today, only sophisticated swing music like Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman is listened to..mose was very pedestrian dance music that has been forgotten..you don't have to like or listen to hip-hop, but the claim that it's "not music" is weak..if Steve Reich or Morton Feldman play cut-up sound collages at Lincoln Center, that is "art"..when Terminator X does it, it's "not music"..??