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Current mood:  calm Category: Life
'HoneyDip' - This is an idea that came to me sometime around March/April of 2000........Questlove (Ahmir) had just thrown my name into the hat to sub for James Poyser on the D'Angelo 'Voodoo' Tour , and I had the pleasure of hangin' in NY with D , Ahmir , Brother Jacques (Shwarz-Bart) and some of the other cats in the band (Frank 'Roots' Lacy , Jeff Lee Johnson , Norris Jones , and some others that were in the perifery....) We did some playin' and things were going great. I remember being struck by the singular/individual approach of D's playing....He had that Rhodes straight up chuggin' along.....That sh.. was so funky it was ridiculous...Dude barely uses the sustain and he has a weird technique were he lifts his fingers teasing keys while he keeps others down ....it's really strange to look at but dope all the same.....Needless to say , it was inspiring to be there and when I came home (Poyser decided that he would jump on the gig after all) , I put this track together real quick as a kinda nod to D and Ahmir and that vibe......(Hey , D wanted me to cop the vibe!!....so I tried.......)
'Kaleidoscope' - This is a quick idea that I came up with in 2002 (I'm pretty sure)......I was super high (back when I use to smoke weed all day.....I still can't believe I quit.....though I don't look down my nose at those who still keep it goin'...not at all) and I put this joint together in about 10 minutes. I called it Kaleidoscope cuz it just feels like motifs keep opening up in layers , like a flower. Shapes come and go , meet and separate and shift and glitter.....So there you have it.
'Dos Orillas, Tres Caminos' - This tune was written right before NAMM' 08. My good friend Grégoire Maret has an endorsement with Suzuki (harmonicas) and they've also shown me some love in the past couple of years. Right around October, our cat at Suzuki (Waichiro Tachikawa, or Tachi) sent me a prototype of a new instrument called the Andes 25F. It's an acoustic 1 1/2 octave(s) keyboard that one blows into (much like a melodica.....which they call melodion) and sounds a lot like a redorder or 'quena' (a flute used by the Native Americans of northern Argentina, Peru, etc.). Right away I was inspired by this new 'toy' and wrote a piece for it. Oddly enough I started with the vamp at the end of the tune and worked my way back to the top. After constructing the tapestry of percussion I put my hand on the keyboard and the main theme came in one fell swoop!! One of the things I love to do is to have a simple melody that is later repeated while varying the harmony against it....It really changes the meaning of it so much!! I find that really fascinating.....it's almost like placing an object in many different lighting schemes, or someone saying the same thing but meaning something different each time through tone of voice or facial expressions......It's also reminiscent of the way in which we see different sides of a person as we get to know them better.....(I know I get carried away.....I'll reel myself in cuz it's not that deep.....). I decided to call it Dos Orillas (which means 'Two Shores') to illustrate the 2 different time signatures in the tune.......The beginning section is in 6x8 which represents more of an African vibe, and the tag switches to 4x4 introducing a Candombe feel (Candombe is an African influenced music indigenous to Uruguay, where I was born). One shore is Africa (it's western shore), and the other is the eastern shore of South America............Tress Caminos (which means 'Three Paths' or 'Three Journey's) represents the initial journey that the music embarked upon from Africa and across the Atlantic into Uruguay. The second journey begins when my family moved from Montevideo to Buenos Aires, Argentina (age 4 1/2), and the final journey manifested when, at age 18, I embarked upon the trek up North (USA). In my mind it also represents the three paths that my life has takes so far.....My early years in Montevideo (Uruguay), my growing up in Buenos Aires (Arg.) and my 'coming of age' life here in the US since arriving at 18.
3:44 AM
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