{"id":788,"date":"2010-08-12T11:28:23","date_gmt":"2010-08-12T16:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.lunarpages.net\/?p=788"},"modified":"2012-08-03T16:04:21","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T21:04:21","slug":"classical-funk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=788","title":{"rendered":"Classical Funk"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong>
\n
\nWoody Herman<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong>
\n
\nEumir Deodato<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download – Woody Herman and the Herd – Fanfare for the Common Man <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Listen\/Download – Deodato – Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)<\/span> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Greetings all. <\/strong>
\nI hope week is coming to a satisfying close for you all.
\nMy wife has to head out for a few days, and the spuds and myself are bumming, but since we plan to wreck the joint while she\u2019s away, there is a (very<\/em>) minor silver lining.
\nWe\u2019ll just see if three people can survive on corn chips, frankfurters and slurpees for five days.
\nIf you haven\u2019t already pulled down the ones and zeros for this weeks Funky16Corners Soul Club<\/strong> mix by my man Vincent the Soul Chef,<\/strong> do so now, on account of it\u2019s full of the funk, and will \u2013 as the kids say \u2013 rock your world.
\nAlso, don\u2019t forget to tune in Friday night at 9PM for this week\u2019s edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Show<\/strong> over at Viva<\/strong> internet radio. If you are not already hip\/hep, you can click on the Radio Show link in the header and check out the fifteen (!?!) weekly shows that have already been mixed down and archived as MP3s for your listening pleasure.
\nToday\u2019s post is one of those things that kind of fell together organically over the course of a few months, wherein I was holding something in storage, and then something else climbed over the transom and into the to-be-blogged folder that, how do they say, augmented the existing track in the stylistic and theoretical (figurative\/symbolic) sense, and so they came together like beer and stout in a black and tan, blended ever so carefully so that once they pass over the lobes and into the brain the desired effect is one of jazzy, funky wonderfulness (and naturally, as is the style here at Funky16Corners, a tremendous run-on sentence).
\nNot too long ago one of my Friendface pals posted a video of the mighty Woody Herman and his Thundering Herd<\/strong> working it out on Aaron Copland\u2019s<\/strong> 1942 masterpiece of 20th century classical music \u2018Fanfare for the Common Man\u2019. I dug the arrangement a LOT, so I went in search of the vinyl equivalent and found another live recording of a slightly later (I think) version of the Herd laying down the same arrangement at Montreaux.
\nBack in the olden days, when I was a long-haired, drum mangling stoner type, I had a copy of a certain Emerson, Lake and Palmer<\/strong> album that contained their version of the same piece of music. Having been brought up in a house full of classical music, but then stuffing my head with as much contemporary rock as possible, as well as being your standard teenaged rube, I thought that the ELP \u2018Fanfare\u2019 was of a deepness theretofore unheard, and blasted it at high volume many, many times until a seriously untrustworthy fellow bandmember (who, if memory serves was also a\u00a0 pathological liar of singular talent) stole what was then a fairly expensive record (of course everything is expensive when you have no money).
\nIn reflection, especially after hearing Woody Herman lay it down, the ELP version sounds like a meth-infused synthesizer orchestra trapped in an electrified mudslide. The Copland piece is both sublime and inspirational, and to hear it mangled so seems now to be something approaching a high crime.
\nInterestingly enough, Herman and his band were playing their Gary Anderson <\/strong>arrangement (recorded in 1974) of \u2018Fanfare for the Common Man\u2019 a few years before ELP got their hands on it, and as you might have already assumed, the touch is considerably lighter, using funky subtlety to finesse the brassy strains of Copland\u2019s piece where ELP drove through it with a steamroller.
\nIn addition to a hot band \u2013 Herman, a master of the original big band era made some serious moves in the fusion era, still with a big band \u2013 you get to hear the master working it out on the soprano sax.
\nIf you get your hands on a copy of the \u2018Herd at Montreux\u2019 album, you also get to hear them play the Richard Evans<\/strong> arrangement of \u2018I Can\u2019t Get Next To You\u2019 and a very tasty version of Billy Cobham\u2019s <\/strong>\u2018Crosswind\u2019 that I\u2019ll feature here in the future.
\nThe second track featured today is something I\u2019m sure a lot of you will be familiar with since it was a substantial hit in 1972. That tune is Eumir Deodato\u2019s <\/strong>epic arrangement of Richard Strauss\u2019s<\/strong> 1896 \u2018Also Sprach Zarathustra\u2019. Better known to one and all as the \u20182001\u2019 music, Deodato\u2019s take on the tune is in addition to being probably the biggest hit CTI ever had, a masterpiece of funky jazz.
\nFeaturing Deodato on electric piano, Airto<\/strong> and Ray Barretto<\/strong> on percussion, Billy Cobham<\/strong> on drums, Stanley Clarke<\/strong> on bass and Jay Berliner<\/strong> on guitar, \u2018Also Sprach Zarathustra\u2019 goes on for nine minutes, and I\u2019m here to tell you (though you should be able to hear it yourselves) that it never lags, never slips into fusion-y masturbation, never loses it\u2019s kick.
\nThe piece builds gradually, with a kind of amorphous tune-up, until the drums kick in at around 48 seconds, then the bass, guitar and of course Deodato\u2019s electric piano (the heart and soul of the tune), followed by what has to be about the best known classical horn line in history, following the structure of the original until it settles down into a funky jam at around the two and a half minute mark. You know I love me some Fender Rhodes, and Deodato goes to town here. The coolest thing of all \u2013 and I hope you\u2019ll agree<\/em> \u2013 is that for what is basically a nine minute long jazz fusion interpretation of a piece of classical music (shades of Spinal Tap<\/strong> in Jazz Fantasy), \u2018Also Sprach Zarathustra\u2019 never gets cheesy or heavy handed, which is especially notable in an era when cheesy and heavy handed were the coin of the realm.
\nI hope you dig both of these cuts, and use them to get down with what the hipsters used to call \u2018long hair\u2019 music.
\nI\u2019ll see you on Monday.<\/p>\n

Peace<\/strong><\/p>\n

Larry<\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"Example\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

PS Make sure to hit up the Funky16Corners Radio Show on Viva internet radio Friday night at 9PM. Your ears will thank you.<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Check out the Funky16Corners Store at Cafe Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

PS Head over to Iron Leg for a tribute to the late Chris Dedrick of Free Design.<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woody Herman Eumir Deodato Listen\/Download – Woody Herman and the Herd – Fanfare for the Common Man Listen\/Download – Deodato – Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)   Greetings all. I hope week is coming to a satisfying close for you all. My wife has to head out for a few days, and the spuds and myself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[58,11,14,15,55,66,19,49,30,52,13],"tags":[163,166,165],"class_list":["post-788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cover-songs","category-funk","category-funky16corners","category-funky16corners-radio","category-funky16cornersviva-internet-radio","category-instrumental","category-jazz","category-jazz-funk","category-lp-tracks","category-radio-show","category-soul-jazz","tag-funk","tag-funky16corners","tag-soul-jazz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-cI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=788"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":928,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions\/928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}