The school they met at North Texas University; a mecca for jazz musicians for decades. Michael lLeague (bass player) is the leader/main composer/arranger whi uses the computer program Logic for his compositions. By the way… THIS IS A TOUR… recorded in The Netherlands. Please look in the video’s comments for the entire cast. The audience is wearing ‘silent disco’ bluetooth headphones, getting a direct feed off the main mixing board.
I saw them in concert a few months ago; I didn't count, but it was a full stage of musicians. And it was ASTONISHING. It didn't look like locals, I was recognizing the faces. It's a shifting group, not everyone that plays with them is at every concert. They were thrilled because - although we're a relatively small, backwoods venue (1600 seat former movie theater in the midwest) - we knew the available tracks from their newest album before it was fully released. They acted surprised at how much we roared for the new pieces...and thanked us. Wonderful music, good people.
I really enjoyed the reactions and insights! They call themselves "a collective" and not a "band." There are about 23 or so members of the collective. They have been touring this entire planet for more than 15 years now with usually about 19 players at a concert. Their latest live album (Empire Central) has three drummers at the same time, three percussionists, four horn/woodwind players, four keyboardists, 3 guitar players, a violinist and the leader, the bass player. There are RU-vid videos of every song on the album, which won the 2023 Grammy Award for Contemporary Instrumental album, Snarky Puppy's 5th Grammy Award.
touring is much stripped down, maybe 10 players. Enjoyed Christina's analysis, and would love to see her develop these ideas or see if she changes her mind on any thoughts with more exposure 🙂
"Fusion" is the word to reach for when in doubt about genres. Snarky Puppy is pretty easy. Become one of the top 50 session musicians in the world (preferably with a few Grammys already) and you might get an invitation to what is more a "collective of individuals" than a band. The "band" is basically the bassist and composer Mike League. By the way, in Norway, you will find a similarly legendary collective called "Jaga Jazzist". It is thought up by two brothers and a more or less fluid group of musicians that manage to clear their calendars so rarely that their concerts are regarded as living unicorns around the world. They are as if the legendary Jan Garbark chose to blend modern jazz with Nordic Electronical ambience instead of interpreting renaissance music with the 4 vocal geniuses of the Hillard Ensemble with his own stunning tenor sax (If you do not know it - follow this link: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0_dmQ7-_b-c.html&ab_channel=wintertrotz). It is so beautiful that it has been remarked: "Officium (the album) is what John Coltrane hears in heaven" A good place to start with Jaga Jazzist, if you want, is "Oban live at the Oslo Session" ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tJPplqqZBqE.html&ab_channel=NinjaTune Back to the awesome Puppies. Not a single piece of sheet music/charts in sight... Oh, and Snarky Puppy and Jaga Jazzist do tours. Jaga because they can sell out "thousands" and more tickets. But also because in Europe there is public money for culture and huge festivals with the budgets to run a "deficit" for things that are too good to be missed because of profit alone. Many European jazz festivals are happy to call artists like Bryan Ferry, Robert Plant, Van Morrison (etc.) "jazz musicians" to finance excellent jazz bands with a somewhat lower commercial potential. I enjoyed working for free on a couple of these European jazz festivals. I got to sit after work and share a few pints with them and experience dudes like Wynton Marsalis pulling out his trumpet to jam with friends and colleagues "after work" and realising just how good the "stars" are and how good the session musicians playing with them on "limited tours" are. A fun example showing how good these session musicians are is watching Larnell Lewis (the drummer) is, is found on "Drumeo" where he is asked to listen to a song he never heard before (with the drums removed), then play it ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vIW72VXMPHo.html&ab_channel=Drumeo Kudos for making a channel not being afraid to highlight music that is off what is showing up on the "most played artist last week" on Spotify. That alone is an instant subscription. In music/arts, we need more diversity and (ironically) more human "curation" to fight the monoculture of algorithmic curation we live in.
great comments, I am going to check out Jaga for sure, sounds right up my alley. I love the fusion of different genres, like the Afro Celt Sound System, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, etc. And yeah, you hit the nail on the head, just say no to the algorithms.
I preferred reading Christina's comments rather than try to hear them over or through the music. She made different, and interesting, comments from any reactors I've seen. So good job. I don't think there were any pre-recorded backing tracks. @buffalobill3266 explains the 'clack'. I've seen many of the musician interviews for the album. No one mentions using a 'click'. I think Larnell is definitely good enough to propel them without a 'click' Further, if you look for "Does Snarky Puppy use click tracks in their IEM?" a person claimed they _"... saw the live recording in Dallas and Michael League actually spoke about people commenting on RU-vid saying that the laptop in the videos had a backing track/click track. He said that they absolutely do not use a click/backing track."_ They recorded the album over four days. Each day they rehearsed two tracks during the day. I assume they also had time to get the mix right. Then they recorded those two songs in the evening with the audience in the studio. The songs were 'composed' and guide tracks recorded, and updated, in the weeks leading up to the recording session. During those weeks musicians were working out their parts, and in the days before recording they were rehearsing together *_except_* for the drummer, Larnell Lewis. He was recruited a few days before the recording session to cover for their usual drummer. There is a mis-quoted story about Larnell 'learning' the songs on a transatlantic flight. Larnell 'learning' the songs didn't mean he was memorising existing drum parts, he was learning the guide-tracks, but composing the drum parts. He learned two songs and composed their drum parts before boarding the flight, then six on the flight. Then he and the rest of Snarky Puppy had four days to rehearse and record those songs. Larnell explains most of his role in his Drumeo video _"Larnell Lewis Hears A Song Once And Plays It Perfectly",_ more comes from interviews about making "We Like It Here", especially from Nate Werth, the percussionist, and the story is completed by other interviews which explain the days leading up to recording, and completed by the album's sleeve notes. Best Wishes. ☮
