I don't think enough gets said about Michael League. His bass playing is unique and often next-level; his writing is diverse and imaginative; and how TF do you arrange three drummers, three percussionists, three guitar players, four keyboards, a full horn section and more without having ANYBODY stepping on anyone else's toes???
@Ralph Munn check out the podcast "Snarky Puppy Transmissions from Deep Ellum". Find it on Spotify or apple podcasts. The band goes into FULL detail about this process and project...
The fake-out by Larnell makes me laugh every time, according to the sax solist Bob Reynolds they were so close to falling for it. You should react to "Take it" as well featuring Bernard Wright!
How League manages to put so many top-tier musicians together at the same time & there never is even a hint that anyone steps on anything anyone else is doing.... #Special Also, you're spot-on re. the crispness of the live capture - there is *so* much going on, & you can hear all of it, yet it is 100% *cohesive* Whoever did the engineering, mixing, mastering appears to need awards too!! :)
Yeah, the drummers described how they do it - they work it beforehand who is going to play which phrase and then use facial cues to give a heads up during the tune. They never overlap backbeats.
Michael Harrison from Glasgow is their front house man. He has been their lead sound engineer for 10 plus years and handles both studio and live mixing for SP. An expert! This is the second studio album in a row featuring these 3 drummers. They take turns on a certain songs, play zones together in other songs where one guy is snare and kick, another works the toms, and the 3rd symbols, but RARELY only one player for an entire tune. These cats are baaaaaaad!
Kyle, you made a comment about this being fusion, but really, this is just SWING, big-band style (albeit with more rhythm section players than a trad big-band would have). I recall reading somewhere that Maz Maher (trumpet player who wrote the tune) calls the style "New Jack Swing" see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_jack_swing
would love to see you react to "if thats your boyfriend" by meshell ndegeocello. the version you want is live 1995 VHS.. North sea jazz fest. wah wah watson and dave fiuczynski on guitar, JoJo mayer on drums. highly recommended.
I JUST got back from a night before festival music master class with four of Snarky Puppy for young musicians. Here's Larnell having some fun! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RKMw94bco2Y.html
I was kinda underwhelmed by this (as a snarky Puppy track) at first, but as you say, it's solid, not a mind blower, and will sit perfectly on the album. I like this take, is a re-adjustment I shouldn't have had to make, I should have been there already. I think it's a compliment to SP to expect mind-blown each time though as well. Anyway, thanks for the reaction. I know this is probably a snippet of a twitch stream so it's different to reactions from other reactors who are not doing a Twitch stream, but I feel I'm not getting to know much about you as we go through this. I just wanted to say don't not talk about personal stuff that the music brings up in you, or reminds you of past events or whatever, as that's the added value of reactors 🙂👍