Jacob Collier performs Ancona in session at Maida Vale for BBC Introducing and Jamie Cullum on BBC Radio 2. Joined by Robin Mullarkey on bass and James Maddren on drums.
Honestly, after Djesse Vol IV, he should consider doing something like this for an album and tour maybe. Just something a little different. Maybe it's a little too traditional a setup for him. I don't know. But it's so cool to hear him in this kind of setting.
ye that´s what he also said, he does not want to be put in a box and "just" play jazz standards in a trio. My guess is, he will continue exploring different genres. I think it would be awesome to get some sort of Djesse V with oncemore more of an acoustic jazz layout with maybe some trio aspects
I greatly prefer that rehearsal video (warts and all). It just sounds so live. This version is too tame -- sounds like the audio was sent through a pillow.
Me three. Besides the edgier mix, warts and all has a mindbending tight/loose swing. Maybe the guys thought it was sloppy but I thought they totally pulled it off.
Oh man. Jacob is genius on his own, but to hear him playing with other such talented musicians, it brings me and I'm sure many others great joy. They can support him in such a way that it gives him creative space while keeping up with all the creativity that flows. They add their own suggestion which is taken and brought to new places, back again, and wherever. The synergy is absolutely amazing. Just incredible musicians. Thank you for bringing this to the world Jacob, Robin and James. Can't wait to hear what more collaborations Jacob does, and all the interesting places he goes and takes us to. Keep it up baby Love, Striker
Jacob's soaring musical intelligence is on display here. His joyfulness as a musician shines through this successful collaboration. Don't miss Mr Collier's sweet smile at the end. You'll find his happiness as a person can be infectious.
Fascinating tune, exquisitely done. Collier is such a master of so many kinds of musical expression. Feeling super grateful to get to be on the planet with him as he inspires so many smiles. Mind boggled again.
LOL! I must have listened to this at least 20 times over the course of the last 2 months and everytime I recommended it to a friend I said: Listen to ANACONDA by Jacob Collier! :D
Olve Gravklev Yeah, 4 quarters where 5 should be, and then further dividing each of his new quarters into 6, to get that 16th note swing feel. However, an easier way to play/read this is to understand that playing 4 where 5 should be creates the fraction 4/5, and as such he is playing a tempo one fifths slower than the song, and then just playing within sextuplet divisions to create that 16th swing. In the case here, the song at this stage is quarter note = 125 and the drummer's tempo is at 100.
It is not divided into sextuplets though. He is still playing the same tempo and playing sixteenth notes, just while accentuating every 5th stroke. However, if you want to think of it as the drummer playing a slower tempo (in the ratio of 4/5), he would indeed be playing a different subdivision, but it would be quintuplets, not sextuplets. Sextuplets would be much more odd to listen to than this, since he is playing 1/5 slower than the others, not 1/6.
One hears "lots" of influences in his melodic structure, of course. Jacob claims to have been influenced much by the harmonic structure of the late Benjamin Britten. But, having brilliant musician parents (mother is a violinist at the Royal Academy) helps :-) Drummer James Maddren and basist, Robin Mullarkey, are brilliant! Tight yet "free" indeed.
I absolutely love this. But why is the sound so muddy? I previously heard the rehearsal video...and although this is more polished there is no top end. Sorry...love everything you do!
Definitely jazz! Though very modern sounding, which I absolutely adore! Many people (like my friend) cannot accept as jazz because it has not got the typical swing drumming and feel.
OrganicPumpkinSeeds brings up a lot of good points, but i think the description makes the song even more intimidating to understand, and i try to translate jacob collier as best i can to avoid this (at least i try to when i can figure it out myself first) so here is my description: everything up to :10 is the 'head' as you would call it if you thought of yourself as a cool jazz musician. it is a sequence of 5 bars of 4/4, but all of the notes he plays are dotted eight notes, which is what organic pumpkin seeds explained in his comment. I think it is easier to think of it as a 4 over 3 polyrhythm. If the quarter note is the 3 in that ratio, a dotted eight note is the 4. It is also a length of 3 16th notes. Understanding this relationship is vital to understanding ancona. the 5 bars of 4 repeats two more times. you might notice that in the turn around to get back to the start of the head, the drummer plays with jacob on the dotted eighths, strongly emphasizing that feeling of 4 against 3. this relationship is what they use to segue into the next section of the song. The next few bars can be thought of as 21/16, except that isnt remotely countable. instead, it should be thought of as a metric modulation, where they take the 4 over 3 relationship and turn the dotted eight note, the 4, into the new quarter note. Now they are effectively in a new tempo, and each bar is a bar of 7 quarter notes (that used to be dotted eighths at the original tempo). There are four of these such bars at the new tempo, as much as it sounds like the bar is over at :39, it isnt. Then he plays a quick bar of 5/8 and a little lick of 7 16th notes that gives us a 7/16 bar, which brings us back into the head for a bar of 4/4 and a bar of 5/4. They transition back into the modulated tempo to play essentially a repeat of the earlier part: four 7/4 bars, the 5/8 bar and the 7/16, and then they add on 12 dotted quarters, or 3 bars of 4/4 modulated. This brings us into a pretty ambiguous section that can be deciphered if you look at the bass line he's playing. It appears to be 4 bars of 7/4, repeated twice, ending with the cool drum lick, and then 8 super stylish swept dotted eighth chords that bring us back to the top. here it is totally barebones: (4/4 x 5) x 3 modulate up: 7/4 x 4 original tempo: 5/8 + 7/16 4/4 + 5/4 modulate up: 7/4 x 4 original tempo: 5/8 + 7/16 modulate up: 4/4 x 3 (7/4 x 4) x 2 sort of two bars of 4/4 going back into the top.
wtwrush A very strong point about personal preference. Myself, I always prefer the 'scientific' solution, and very early on, I studied as such to make it the easiest to understand, but the beauty of music is that it can be thought of in different ways and still meet to the same point. With that said though, surely it is much, much easier for you to treat the section as 21/16, because you don't need to count the 16ths, as the pulse then becomes dotted 8ths. It is as if you are now counting 7/8, but accepting that each count is dotted as there are three 16ths to each count. This way, there needs to be no tempo change in between the two sections, as the 16th note speed remains the same.
OrganicPumpkinSeeds ahaha were saying the same thing, it's just much scarier to see something written as 21/16, if it can be counted as 7 dotted eighths. They are of course totally equivalent, it just feels like to someone reading the imaginary music it would be impossible to know what was meant by that if you didn't explain that a metric modulation was happening. You can call it a tempo change or just an extended change in pulse, or a metric modulation, but for me thinking of it as a modulation is far and away the easiest way to wrap my head around what's happening. I love how the whole song is one big blurred line between quarter notes and dotted eighths :)
Have you seen the YT video of the gig Rebello did at Ronnie Scott's with Tal Wilkenfeld on bass, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums and a certain Jeff Beck on guitar, with guests Joss Stone, Imogen Heap and Eric Clapton? It's simply sublime. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are visible in some audience shots too.
Hey. Are the drummer and bassist chopped liver? I love to listen and watch Collier play; his amazing dexterity on the keyboard is nothing short of brilliant . But there are two other gifted musicians contributing significantly to this piece. Their efforts are shortchanged and essentially ignored by the camera persons and or / film editors to a degree that borders on disrespect, particularly when the bass was briefly soloing and the camera remained stubbornly fixed on the piano and Colliers expression. Enough with the Collier hyper- worshipping. Serve the music first people; I’d wager Collier would be the first to agree.
The music is amazing, love it, but the video sucks. Footage of All musicians at relevant points please! C'mon your the BBC for God's sake, not John or Dave on their smart phones.
almost. pretty much :) haha. "The Lick" is such a joke among musicians since that video came out. Sometimes I gotta bust out the lick at some gigs to the amusement of some and total unawareness of others.