Everybody Loves The Sunshine (Sunrise and Sunset)

June 4, 2022 ~ Poetic Reverb ~ Leave a comment

Here is Roy Ayer’s 1976 original version. Here is Gabriele Poso’s 2017 rendition. Here is Keifer’s 2021 rendition.

“Everybody Loves The Sunshine”, Roy Ayers first crystalized this fact into Jazz Lore in 1976. This track is practically a Jazz Standard, and for good reason, the lyrics are as close to universal as you can get, and the instrumental sections leave plenty of room for the kind of free-flowing interpretation musicians love.

There are so many versions of this track I like, but there are two renditions I heard recently that got me thinking about how two genius composers were able to create arrangements that evoke a distinct impression of a certain time of day.

The first rendition is by Gabriele Poso. Poso is an percussionist and so quite rightly, the track is driven by the rhythm section. It has a pulse, an energy that propels the piece forward. Poso’s sunshine is that of a clear summer’s day when the sun is almost at its peak in the day and the air is very fresh. The flute and xylophone bring out the youthful nature of this rendition, reinforced by the singer’s voice that heralds summer flowers in full blossom.

If Poso’s sunshine is of the midday sun, then Keifer’s sunshine is of the setting sun. Keifer’s rhythm is much slower, perhaps because he is digesting the summer fruits enjoyed earlier in the day or perhaps because Keifer wants to make every second of the summer last. The instruments are more selective about which parts of the track to accentuate with sentimental overtones and phrasings. Timing and rhythm are less important here. What is important are the memories of the good times that summer brought, how it made us feel.

And so, the clarity of Poso’s arrangement makes us feel more connected to the present moment, whilst the haziness of Keifer’s track makes us feel more reflective and reminiscent. Poso’s sun – bright and yellow. Keifer’s sun – deep and mellow.

Etcetera – Steam Down ft. Afronaut Zu

September 7, 2020September 8, 2020 ~ Poetic Reverb ~ Leave a comment

Here is the song.

A potent musical idea expressed by Wayne Shorter on his 1965 record etcetera has been decoded in 2020 by Steam Down and Afronaut Zu for this epic Blue Note Re:imagined album. A new layer of complexity has been emitted by this Afrofuturist orchestra. The beginning even sounds like their own unique version of morse code. The overall song maintains the original’s sense of the otherworldly, yet Steam Down take us in a bold new direction.

“Let go of the nonsense, all that you hear, yes you know them, the echoes in your ear“

An unprotected computer doesn’t last half an hour before it subjected to a barrage of malware and cyber-attacks. So what makes us humans think we can survive the media onslaught in an age of personalised fake news stories delivered by state-sponsored Artificial Intelligence bots that are smarter than us?

In this way, this song is like a major anthropomorphic defrag as we cast aside all of the nonsense redundant files that we are accumulating. We need to return to and rely on our own internal resources to ‘Steam Down’. We are also given a living example of how to achieve this by listening to the lyrics, phrasings and ad-lib expressions of Afronaut Zu, who delivers a fully committed performance.

The band produces a profoundly deep and immersive sound. There is great balance in the way it’s different components fit together as an ensemble and temporally within the song as the energy rises towards its crescendo and falls again.

As a final thought, this song encourages us not to live in etceteras. That each day we should have at least one moment, experience or thought that defies easy categorisation. Something that provides that same feeling of otherworldliness as the chorus, which reminds us that we are not machines.

Dead Man Walking – Terrace Martin feat Rose Gold & Nick Grant

April 26, 2020 ~ Poetic Reverb ~ Leave a comment

Here is the song*

* This song contains explicit language in the second verse.

Not only will we die one day, we also carry within us cells that are both dying and dead. For those who consider the body nothing but an agglomeration of cells, this means that we carry the vestige of a dead person with us everywhere we go. This is more all-encompassing than you think. From the dissolution of dead matter, new cells and new life is created. In other words, our bodies are generated from dead things. Dust, as it were. We carry the dead within us.

To me, this song deals with the experience of walking with the remnants of one’s former beliefs, personality and way of thinking. ‘I die daily’ Paul the Apostle famously proclaimed in his spiritual pursuit to become more like Christ. Yet a vestige of his former self remained. There were painful limits to his self-transformation. Perhaps time not only plays a part in biological processes, but spiritual formation as well.

But this song begs the question, how far can we get away from the dead man within us? The singer Rose Gold has gotten so far removed from this dead person, that she considers its odour different from her own. The rapper Nick Grant even offers an anticipatory toast to the new him. Yet over time, this very same person will become part of the vestige. Perhaps more principled, more aromatic, but no less dead.

Terrace Martin captures the slowness of death within the tempo of the song and the organ’s notes, almost like the beat is a zombie stalking the musicians. Consider Grant’s rapping speed which is so different from the underlying tempo. Yet death catches up with the musicians in the song, just as it does for all of us.

What happens after death can seem to be a spiritual and philosophical free-for-all. As for me, I would like to experience the promise of there being no more death. That is a pretty remarkable proposition if you ask me.

Crazy Race – The RH Factor

February 13, 2020February 14, 2020 ~ Poetic Reverb ~ Leave a comment

Here is the song. And live.

What inner-drive compels musicians to produce music? For some, to make money (it is a profession after all). For others, to acquire social status. For others, to express the complex feelings inside themselves. For others, to make “statements”. Yet for others, simply to make the listener happy.

All of these reasons are legitimate, but I am most grateful for the last group of musicians who make music to increase the barometer of human happiness. No other artist represented this group better than Roy Hargrove. I feel joy when listening to Roy Hargrove and The RH Factor. The music short-circuits every modern neuroticism and sceptical impulse. Its like an unexpected gift – we simply weren’t expecting to be this happy listening to Roy, and we weren’t expecting him to want us, personally, to be happy. I picked up on a different intent in his music when listening to his other tracks, such as his rendition of September in the Rain. But then he states his musical mission in no uncertain terms in a documentary about his life around 7:55.

“I just want people to remember that I always wanted to make them feel good when they heard me play.”

You can choose to believe a waiter is showing you extra TLC because they want a tip. But the best waiters do things that are so meaningful and inspired, so above and beyond what you would expect a waiter who was trying to get a tip would do, that you end up enjoying the food even more. And so it is listening to Roy Hargrove and The RH Factor. Simply put, me, along with millions of people across the world, enjoy our lives more when we listen to their music. But don’t just take my word for it…

We Here – Joey Alexander

February 3, 2020February 5, 2020 ~ Poetic Reverb ~ Leave a comment

Here is the song.

I listened to this song three times before I decided to write about it. This prompted me think about why we relisten to songs. Do we pick songs we know to match and reinforce our current mood? Or do we pick songs to alter our mood towards a more desirable one that we recall during our previous listen?

When I first heard this song, I liked the way it made me feel. Then afterwards, I wanted to listen to it again to emulate those same feelings in subtle variations. Like feeling the wind blowing from slightly different directions. Like a tap dancer touching a different spot within the same circle. I find no two listening journeys are ever the same; we start listening in one mental state and end up somewhere else.

And so, I have clarified my understanding of the metaphor of ‘the song’. The song is not the destination, the song is the compass, and we follow it’s direction from wherever we find ourselves. With every listen, we go further in the direction the artist established. We started there, now we here.

Joey’s compass leads us by the scenic route, by the place where we can dote upon and imagine beautiful things. Beautiful things such as the flutist Anne Drummond’s melody. Joey models this through his own piano performance. There is some kind of meta-dance within his playing in that he is both observer and participant. Joey’s vibrant style and reflective phrasings are bursting with expression and is instructive of a delightful way to approach life.

Then you realise that it is the Kendrick Scott on drums. Within the opening 14 seconds, Scott manages to communicate everything we ever need to know about musical rhythm, style and grace.

Church – Mark Kavuma

October 18, 2019 ~ Poetic Reverb ~ Leave a comment

Here is the song.

In my church, we have this saying – ‘church is not the building, it’s the people, the relationships, the community’. And this song is community embodied, exemplified and most importantly, enjoyed. Music too, is not really about the instruments, its about the musicians and their ‘communion of sounds’. Church, at its best, is a place where individual expression is celebrated, encouraged even. And we hear expression everywhere in the trumpet phrasings, genre-blending rhythms, sporadic drum solos, there is even a tap dancer at the beginning. It seems chaotic. Yet all are welcome. And in this atmosphere, musical harmony emerges. We can go further; church is a place where individual expression is put to the service of the collective. I think the benefits of any community emerge over time, after you’ve stuck through the bits that don’t really make sense. After all, when you first start going to church, you sing songs that you don’t really understand.

I recently took a friend to see Kavuma and his band – The Banger Factory – perform. This was my friend’s first time at a Jazz concert, and she commented on the brotherhood amongst the musicians. She even said, “I’ve never seen a bunch of guys this passionate about anything before”. She had a point. The band were sharing the kind of moments that were firmly at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

But most of all, this song reminds me of the churchiest thing you can imagine – call and response. In this song, a musician will make a call, and there is always an individualised response to the call. What a beautiful promise to have, that when you put out a call from the depths of who you are, someone will respond, that someone will relate with you. You are not alone. That is church.

Endless Lawns – Kurt Elling feat. Marquis Hill

August 25, 2019March 13, 2020 ~ Poetic Reverb ~ Leave a comment

Here is the song.

Have you ever looked out of a train window as the raindrops race down the glass? Some raindrops move faster than others, bumping into others which causes them to combine and descend even faster. I can stare at the window for a very long time watching this happen. This song feels like raindrops on a train window.

Sadness is a deep emotion, a spiritual congealant that forces you to process life at a slower pace. But why are sad things beautiful? How do we find beauty in sadness? I think that when we are sad, life slows down, and new qualities of our sadness are then revealed – qualities not easily accessible when life is experienced at a faster tempo.

There are many sad, but beautiful sounds in this song – Elling’s voice, Hill’s muted trumpet, the pianist’s sombre melodies and the lyrics themselves. We savour every long sad note. In fact, the longer the better.

“Afloat and all at sea

The stars align in threes

They’re so fine and free in blue and in green

Like leaves on endless trees”

In life, there are things that change quickly and things that change slowly. Much of the catharsis in the world comes from standing in the middle of things that are changing at different relative rates. What does it mean to observe the Orion constellation in the sky as a dreamy youth, and then as a weathered man during a dark night of the soul, seeing no apparent change in the star, yet a chasm of change within oneself? I don’t know. But like the beauty of watching raindrops that move across a window at different speeds, there is beauty in merely contemplating the question.

Blue Nile – Matthew Halsall featuring The Gondwana Orchestra

July 29, 2019July 29, 2019 ~ Poetic Reverb ~ Leave a comment

Here is the song.

Does great music remain confined to our hearing, or does it leak through into our other senses. Can we feel, see, smell, even taste music? The premise of this blog poetic reverb is that great music does leak into our other senses. The vibrations laden in the beats-per-minute of a piece of music reverberate in the brain like the harps reverberate at the end of Blue Nile. Think of the great novel, painting, movie, sculpture that had a significant impact on you, it’s unlikely you processed it in only one sense. Perception itself is multi-sensory, and when our senses work in harmony, it leads to phenomenon of emergence.

Emergence explains that stimuli only become meaningful to us at certain levels of abstraction. So it’s not just the fact that the double bass in this song is playing at just the right tempo, it’s the fact that when the double bass is joined by the percussion, keys, trumpet and finally by the harp, certain associations become apparent and connections between our senses refine the overall experience. Therefore one instrument can have a dramatic impact on how a piece of music is perceived. Likewise, one experience can have a dramatic impact on the meaning of a song to the listener.

Matthew Halsall’s music exemplifies the power of softness in musical composition. Everything in the song seems to be moving in the same direction. Like a river. Like the Nile. After a certain point, the currents in the song become unstoppable, and we are powerless against the onslaught of cascading harps at 6:28 – like the hare that somehow cannot stop the tortoise overtaking it. Listening to this song, I was reminded of the Bruce Lee’s most famous edict – “Be water my friend”.

Monster – Jamie Cullum

July 13, 2019July 13, 2019 ~ Poetic Reverb ~ Leave a comment

Here is the song.

In a way, ‘a good thing’ can become a monster; our inability to attain it can strike fear into our hearts, our failure to feel worthy of it can torment us, and our disappointment caused by its failure to satisfy us can be a tragic monstrosity. A monster is defined in the dictionary as an ‘imaginary creature’. What Cullum seems to be pursuing in this song is an imaginary cure-all creation which haunts him throughout the song, a sad-but-true metaphor for striving after creative euphoria.

For all his talent, experience and fans, even a creative genius like Cullum is not in control of his final output. Jamie makes an inspired connection between the act of creativity and gambling & treasure hunting – fundamentally unsound and risky endeavours. Yet this insecurity in his art leads us towards what is really going on, and what he is really seeking – he wants connection, he wants to feel significant, he wants to be a saviour. It’s not really about song writing – it never was. In fact, things are rarely ever about what they seem to be. This latter revelation continually perplexes mankind and provides therapists with a predictably stable income.

Jamie’s voice dominates the song’s entire proceedings, which works because the message of the song is revealed through the lyrics and the marvellous phrasing Jamie employs. And who can blame him when he can craft beautifully shaped phrases like ‘all the chips are falling where they oughta be’ or when he paints entire vistas of emotions through the various ways he sings ‘it feels’.

It’s easy not to notice all the little things that this song does right, but I implore you to listen deeply. As you do, you begin to appreciate the song’s perfect tempo, the timing of the rhodes accompaniment, the way all the instruments have a hazy undertone that compliments Cullum’s own raspy voice. T’is the sweetest monster i’ve ever heard.