Anatomy of THE Groove: “I’ve Been Waiting” by Incognito feat/Maysa Leak

Maysa Leak is an artist who came to my attention after first hearing her expert,smokey alto in the early aughts. The Baltimore native graduated from Morgan State University with a degree in classical performance.  She performed in the Morgan State Choir. It was there she met Stevie Wonder,who brought her in to be a backup singer in his late 80’s/early 90’s edition of Wonderlove. She was most prominent on his soundtrack for the 1991 Spike Lee Joint Jungle Fever. She released her solo debut in 1995 as well. While performing with different groups over the years,its a clear memory where I first heard her.

During the same time I was deep into bands like Jamiroquai,discovering Rufus/Chaka Khan,Miles Davis and the jazzy side of funk my mom picked up a CD called No Time Like The Future  by Incognito. This is the first time I ever heard Maysa singing on songs such as “Get Into My Groove”,which I’ve already covered here. Her jazzy style permeates much of her life,so much so that she named her daughter Jazz. And that jazzy groove attracted me to more and more Incognito albums over the years. Their 2008 album  Tales From The Beach  contained one of my favorite songs sung by her on “I’ve Been Waiting”.

Maysa begins the song by saying “if my heart should betray my emotions,I hope you understand just what it is I’ve been feeling”. Following that,a VERY Stevie Wonder like major/minor jazz chord progression played on a high and bass toned Oberheim synthesizer begins the musical end of the song. This consists of a flutter wah wah guiter and light cymbal/bass drums kicking off a thick slap bass line playing along three chords. After a couple bars of that the slow,funky drums come in along with the Fender Rhodes electric piano and Bluey’s liquid rhythm guitar.

In between this refrain,there’s a brief musical bridge which brings in the tight horn charts-which play call and response to Maysa’s vocals. The Rhodes also plays a strong counter melody to this as well. When the chorus comes in,Maysa is multi tracked within a sea of percussive drums,wah wah guitar,dancing horn charts and the even snakier slap bass line. Just before the second round of choruses and refrains,the keyboards take over for yet another short bridge on the outro. The music strips down to its most percussive elements on the final choruses as the song closes out on a breezy Rhodes coda.

One day,I’m hoping Incognito will be somewhat more recognized worldwide for their often ingenious continuation of 70’s jazz funk in the modern age. Again as has been a continuing theme with me lately,this is a complexly arranged composition. The chord progressions and melodic changes,along with the changes in instrumental soloing throughout,make this one of the most sleekly arranged jazz-funk jams of the new millennium. Maysa’s strong personality and determined “grown folks” outlook on sensuality really make this one of 2008’s major jams of the year for me,anyway.

 

Andre’s Amazon Archive: “HitnRun Phase Two” by Prince & The New Power Generation

What a wonderful Prince album for lovers of the funk! And on a strictly personal note, a vast improvement on it’s predecessor. As good a move it was for Prince to have hired young producer Joshua Welton for HITNRUN Phase One,I had the concern that album would stand alongside many of the artists mid/late 90’s releases in terms of not aging well. Attempts made by Prince to incorporate current production trends generally resulted in showcasing what an unhealthy state soul/R&B music was at these given times. He and the NPG were (and in the case of the band still are) hardcore funk musicians. So on Prince’s swansong,he and the band basically worked it back to the rhythm of the one.

“Baltimore” is beautifully melodic soul rocker paying tribute to young Freddie Gray due to police brutality,as well as offering some some sage advice for modern civil rights activism. “Rocknroll Loveaffair” is a bass pumping,danceable country rocker with a sleek bluesy attitude while “2 Y.3.D” a James Brown style horn heavy pop funk jam. “Look At Me,Look At U” is a rolling,mid tempo jazz/funk groove full of slap bass,Fender Rhodes and flute while “Stare” takes that bass,drums,guitar,horns and turns up the funk heavy. “Xtraloveable” turns up the bass synth and the strong pop melody for a thick boogie funk stomp where “Groovy Potential” is another slinky mid tempo jazz/funk ballad with some sexy guitar.

“When She Comes” brings out that classic 60’s southern soul ballad with that slow scaling guitar while “Screwdriver” brings in a rhythmic riffing of a driving pop/rocker. “Black Muse” is a nice,chunky down home funky soul tune-one full of hit horns and chugging rhythm that deals with how important black American music is to the history of the artistic medium itself. “Revelation” is a gentle,spare ballad that again features a strong electric piano presence along with Prince’s ethereal falsetto vocal mix. The album concludes with “Big City”. It begins with that P-funk style chromatic walk-down before getting into some wah wah heavy melodic funk.

More than anything,what this album does is showcase just how much Prince’s musical evolution came out of funk-despite the modern perception that his rockier hits represented the baseline of his entire creative ethic. On that note,even the guitar rockers here return to the happily melodic,hook filled nature of his 80’s era music of this genre-as opposed to the aloof weariness of some of Prince’s recent rock oriented music Primarily though,this album emphasis Prince as a straight up band leader-getting funkiest drums,horns and jazzy keyboards out of the NPG. Prince’s sudden and young death is still a tragedy. But especially for the funk lover,this album is one bang of a way to go out!

Originally written on April 29th,2016

*LINK TO ORIGINAL AMAZON.COM REVIEW HERE. PLEASE GO TO THE REVIEW,TELL ME IF IT WAS HELPFUL TO YOU AND COMMENT BOTH HERE AND ON THAT SITE. THANK YOU!

Anatomy Of THE Groove Special Presentation for 5/10/2015: “Baltimore” by Prince

https://soundcloud.com/prince3eg/baltimore

Having the police related murders of Michael Brown (in Ferguson,Missouri)and most recently Freddie Gray (in Baltimore) on the public consciousness so much of late? One of the major conversations among musically minded individuals was the almost complete lack of attention paid to the issue by contemporary you musicians. Especially black American musicians such as economic powerhouses Beyonce,Nikki Minaj,Jay Z and Alicia Keys. So were civil rights related protest songs truly a dead art form in the United States?

Apparently they were not. And as it turned out? It was going to come from a source that not everyone (including myself) would’ve expected it to. Throughout his career? Prince has shown himself,at best,to be extremely fickle and unpredictable in terms of what sort of sociopolitical benefits he chooses to become musically involved in. Considering his two decade personal mission of asserting a creative end of black power on his own terms? This purple icon recorded a new song. And as typical performed the instrumental parts by himself. Later bringing in young Chicago vocalist Eryn Allen Kane to sing on this new number he called simply “Baltimore”.

Beginning with Eryn’s gospel drenched vocal cry of the title, a drum roll opens the main core of the song. This is a very basic melodic setup on that level. It’s an acoustic guitar harmony with a smooth blues lead guitar riff. On the refrain, Prince is playing a pumping bass over a steady 4/4 pop/rock beat with more rock guitar accents. This pattern repeats itself in two or three variations and building in intensity as the lyrics do. On the bridge? There’s a thick drum/percussion rhythm over which Prince declares “if there ain’t no justice, then there ain’t no peace”.

Prince comes back with another powerful bluesy lead guitar before Eryn comes in with another powerful lead. The song ends first with a repeat of the bridge-this time with 80’s Minneapolis orchestral synthesizer before ending on a gentler  version of the chorus. The two beat drum pattern is accompanied by a synthesizer and Prince’s own falsetto vocal harmonies. This leads off the song, which concludes with what sounds like a news report “interrupting your regularly scheduled program about a developing situation in Los Angeles”.

Upon my first listen to the song? It actually didn’t come off as all that moving musically. Personally? It seems a bit more instrumentally fitting to use funk as a medium for a message song. That musical genre’s strong emphasis on rhythm makes it ideal accompaniment for a song about a real life event which needs to be dealt with positively. Prince actually decided to make a very bright and acoustically tinged pop/rock number here. The sometimes elaborate and percussive drum patterns really showcases the rhythmic mastery Prince has been able to transfer from drum machines to live drums over the decades.

Taken on it’s own terms? This is one of the more upbeat rock songs Prince has made in years. From an instrumental and compositional perspective. Lyrically there’s another kind of feeling eluded to. The man is looking at the present situation from a rather broad and historical perspective. He showcases how a day and place can make all the difference in terms of perceiving racially motivated human tragedy. He even paraphrases Albert Einstein by stating “peace is more than the absence of war”. That after asking for prayer for the murders of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. So the song asks for heartfelt acts of kindness and social responsibility in a time where silent shock creates too much human inaction.