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BLACK HISTORY MONTH MUSIC LISTENING LESSON SESSION #1

Please listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhHBr7nMMio "I’ll Take You There” by the Staple Singers, written by Alvertis Isbell (doubtful relation)

Let’s look at the large picture. The groove. The pocket. All the same language for that sensed something in the music that makes the listener want to move a body part with the beat. Yes I described it.

No playing in this tune pushes the “feel” by being in front of that beat. All playing sits right in, *almost* getting played late, but it actually on the back edge of “right on it”.

The drummer, Roger Hawkins, carries the greatest torch for that feel. David Hood, on bass, has that sit back feel that I refuse to call “lazy”. Mavis’ lead singing is notably hallmark living urgently on top of this groove.

Notes:

~ When Mavis calls out “Barry, play your piano now”, she’s talking about Barry Beckett

~ When she calls out “Daddy, Daddy -(beat)- Daddy” during the guitar solo she’s talking to her father Roebuck “Pops” Staples. In actuality, that’s guitarist Terry Manning’s solo, who also later overdubs the harmonica parts.

~ When she calls out “Davy, little Davy, she’s recognizing David Hood's immensely melodic solo that never fails to move me, yet please listen closely - during his solo, Barry Beckett on piano picks up Hood’s bass line. You have to listen wicked close to hear it, but it’s thoughtful production and musicality here.

~ Ohhh the groove, the soul, the church, the roots of Black hot day’s work of involuntary conscription and sharecropper energy conservation feel, the working people’s synchronicity as a people to get it done, oh, that feel, and except for the Staples and one sax player, Andrew Love, everyone in that band was white.

Yeah I said it. White.

I have an arch conservative white friend who told me once, “The biggest problem with race in this country is that we’re always talking about it”. I have Black friends that’ll say “for every one of these atypical White standouts, there’s 3 Black people that can do the same”.

I guess we’re also talking about Kevin McHale’s left-handed drop step under the basket, Larry Bird’s passing and 20 footer, Eminem’s rapping, Art Pepper’s alto, Stan Getz’s tenor, Bill Evans - note that there’s two Bill Evanses that Miles Davis, who took no shite, loved and hired - both the piano player and the saxophonist - the list goes on.
I’m sure that there are comparable Black ones of each of these out there, and that these folks surely benefitted from their lack of melanin to get where they were. Sure. But once through your journey, on the bandstand, on the court, delivery is key. You’ve got to be able to play to stay at the picnic.

So to you Black Berklee grads, so very Nationalist Black discrediting my informal music education and my “playing for coca drinkers and muffin eaters” that you ended up presidents of a music school, bills paid by Sabrina Carpenter wannabes, or to you drummers for world-touring white smooth jazz icons - yeah grinding a little ax here - my albums have a myriad of people - gay, straight, white, black, blind, over 80, under 20, even some of you, and each brings something to sessions that were more than just the greatest of musicality in a 50 mile radius. They bring a journey.

And I thought maybe I was the lost baby of Kenny Rankin and George Benson. And I remember the day I found out that Average White Band, one of the greatest funk bands ever, actually was white.

There’s always a journey, isn’t there? You better take one.

In next week’s edition of BHMMLLS, maybe we talk about Bobby Caldwell...