Reacting to Snarky Puppy - Lingus (We Like It Here) 

Guy walking away is a 4 time grammy award winner Shaun Martin. So if guy like that goes insane... :D

Cory Henry started playing when he was 6. He's doing what nearly no keyboard player can do near the end. He's playing unison with both hands on different decks. During the fast noodly sections he's comping his own melodic solo. And the chords are obscene.

"Am I supposed to pay attention to the keys, brass section, guitars or the drummer?" - "Yes."

The people wearing red headphones are the musicians. There's a whole string section that don't figure in this track. The people in silver headphones are the audience. Snarky Puppy like the vibe of an audience. They're all listening to what's going through to the sound booth, and that's what's on the album. Corey Henry, the keyboardist. He starts by framing the scales and chords that he wants to use. Then he goes to work. He has his own band these days, but this is a loose cooperative. Michael League, the bassist and leader, does the lead sheets, ie writes the framework, and has several potential musicians he can call on. If the musician is doing something else he'd rather do, or making more money, then he'll go to another musician. They are all at this level. Jacob Collier has played with them, but he has a rabbit hole all his own.

They're mostly from University of North Texas. A bunch of session jazz musicians getting together and playing their nuts off... Between the members of this group, they have a total of 12 grammy's now. Freaking amazing skill. The drummer learned the entire live album in a 7 hour flight to the Netherlands once their normal drummer got sick and had to go home.

i know the keys stole the show. but for me... the drummer.. holy smokes is on a different kind of planet

The band learns these songs very quickly mostly in a matter of hours. Each member memorizes not only their own parts, but every other part as well. Basically, they all know all of the parts and just play. They are truly amazing to watch and listen to.

I LOVE WHEN YOU GET CONFUSED!!! Fun fact: Larnell Lewis (the drummer) learned the songs for this session in only a few hours, whereas the rest of the band had four days.

Welcome to Snarky Puppy! As you can tell these musicians are extremely talented. They drummer is my favorite, but i just enjoy top notch music Pappy. Hope you will agree and keep this band coming to your channel. They are a knit group and you can tell they are having a blast.

This is one of those rare #Transcendent musical moments every human being should experience. :)

Welcome along! For the composition process with Snarky: Mike League (the bass player) tends to give MIDI demos of the a tune to all the people playing on a particular recording. They learn it by ear, and then rehears it together a couple times. From there jazz inevitably happens to the arrangement. (there was a section here for 2 soloists to trade 4s, this time taken up by the flugelhorn and tenor sax, there was a section for a biiig solo from low energy to high and then trades with the horn section this time taken by Cory Henry). A thing to look out for with the live arranging of the tunes is Mike signalling whether to keep going in a section or to move on to the next bit. He shakes his head when they're coming to the end of a cycle if he wants the band to hang out some more, or sticks his fist up in the air if it's time to move on. It's also worth noting that Larnell Lewis (on kit) learnt these tunes on the flight over, as one of Snarky's other drummers couldn't get to the session. Jazz musicians. We're improvisors. You get the skill to fake knowing more about a tune than you do on short-notice over years of having to do it on a gig. Snarky is like a big collective thing with very few constant members. They have different lineups throughout their tours, but they're all jazz musicians on the top of their game so if they know the tune they can listen and make it work. The guy looking down the camera was Bill Lawrence. You might know him, you might not. London lad. Sick keys player and composer in his own right, but that kinda goes for every individual in group.

I'm a huge fan. Absolutely bewildered the first few times I listened, but delighted with the bits I could follow. At some point, you just gotta' give up and pick a starting place. I've listened dozens of times now, and I'm completely addicted. It doesn't get old because I keep hearing new things... it's like the two guitars you pointed out. I'd never noticed that before, since mostly I listen w/o watching. But now.... there it is, another beautiful treat.

In answer to your question about whether it's written, it's a bit of both. The ensemble stuff is written down and the solo stuff (sax, trumpet, keyboard) is improvised. The sax and trumpet trade 4 bars each. During the keyboard solo, it's a repeating 8-bar chord progression that repeats until he decides it's done. If you listen to the bass/keyboard that play along with the bass drum, you can hear that repeating 8 bars. He goes 19 rounds of that. During the last one, you can see him look at the drummer and nod, signaling that it's the last one and to bring in the rest of the band. They all then continue on and finish. After that, Cory trades bars (4 or 8) with the rest of the band; his solos are improvised and the band's riffs are written.

I’ve been a SnarkyPuppy addict since 2011. Been thinking about rehab……….but no.

I'm glad you rewatched Larnell Lewis the drummer at the end in that section. I love the absolute energy of those 2 bars, and the different cymbal added in at the end of that phrase. There's also a bit earlier where I think all 5 of his large cymbals are moving about at the same time. Sleeper is my favorite from this album/session - the other keyboard player plays his hosepipe.....!

Indeed, on first listen it is hard to figure out what to focus on. But thats part of the charm with these songs. I have heard this song now many many times and each time things become more clear and you hear new things each time that you missed the last time. :)

No sheet music. They memorize all their parts. Check out their new album "Empire". Phenomenal!!❤

A couple of things i haven’t seen mentioned in the comments: 1. The parts of the tune that aren’t improvised are created in a composing program called Logic. Everyone gets a midi file with their part highlighted. Michael League directs each new section. 2. This band was formed at Northern Texas University (formerly called North Texas State U), a ‘must attend’ college for jazz musicians since the ‘70’s that i’m aware of. 3. and this is probably the most important one; Larnell Lewis, the drummer, learned nearly every track for this entire album ON THE FLIGHT OVER. He was a last minute replacement for their regular drummer who couldn’t make the gig. There’s other stuff… like each track was recorded and videoed in a single take with a small audience listening on wireless “silent disco” headphones, and hearing what is being recorded from the main feed.Each and every one of these musicians are ABSURDLY talented and deserve all the praise we can afford them.

They have 3 auxiliary percussionists along with usually 2 set drummers

From what I've seen of the react community, there's a "before Lingus" and "after Lingus". Prepare for an influx of _amazing_ suggestions, and LOTS of attention now! Btw the composer is the bassist (if others haven't mentioned this), and he likely composed what's known as a "jazz lead sheet" for everyone to follow. They're not exactly super-thoroughly written pieces of music as far as the actual notes played, and instead serve more as an overall short-hand reference (think high-level instead of "in the weeds"). So the keys soloist would literally have "solo" written for a number of bars and that could literally be all, or maybe the full-band punches are put in at most. They're just _THAT_ good musicianship-wise *and* as a gelled band where they don't need more than a lead sheet, then they memorize it and record!

The drummer listened to the songs for the 1st time on the way to session.

BTW... All their music is like this

The whole concert is awesome.Great reaction.

Love Snarky Puppy!!❤

Only the strings, which didn't play on this track ever had written music. The bassist wrote most of the songs, this was one of two written abd played live before this album recording. This is how they record albums. I'm this place, all musicians have Ted headphones. All audience have the silver ones with a different mix. The bassist arrived in the studio, went to a keyboard and started writing songs before he removed his back pack. He would send sections of songs as MP3s to the band to learn their sections. The whole process took abut two weeks. Other than the two songs written before, the drummer learned the drums on the fight abd arrived Teo hours before recording began. The original drummer couldn't get his passport in time. Drummer Larnell Lewis is famous fir one listen videos. He listens to a song like Enter Sandman once, then sits down and lays it, usually note for note. The band has four Grammys. The keyboardist who took off his headohone and walked mid solo has an additional two more. Every member is top notch. There is a making of video that also covers a mini tour of Eutope they did 12 shows in 12 nights or something. It is fantastic, but around 40 minutes long.

I,m pretty sure the solo's were made on the spot for the Sax, trumpet and keys

Very nice

Its pretty mind blowing.....

Very little of that is written... It's mostly improvised.

Don't pay attention to anything, lol. Just listen and then on your 15 listen-thru start reading at the beginning of this comment :)