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Double Bass Sam Suggs Three EDM Caprices
- Thread starter garrett2
- Start date
Well, I used to say that the musicians with the actual skills to do something like this right would be too busy with their own ideas but, here we are!
The playing is fantastic. However, lets be clear: the extended techniques comes straight from Scodanibbio who got them from Fernando Grillo. There is a bit from Turetzky as well. It shouldn't take some lightweight pop material to bring them to the attention of anyone serious about the double bass.
On the other hand, I do like the understanding that IF you are going to do a successful cover of contemporary pop music, you must address the color and timbre - reducing the music to chords and a melody for cocktail jazz versions is not enough.
Someone needed to do it right and now it is done.
On the other hand, I do like the understanding that IF you are going to do a successful cover of contemporary pop music, you must address the color and timbre - reducing the music to chords and a melody for cocktail jazz versions is not enough.
Someone needed to do it right and now it is done.
EDM is a child of Terry Riley -- among many others -- and I think Scodanibbio would be proud.
Completely unrelated. I set up several concerts and workshops for Scodanibbio. Scodanibbio was a pretty serious guy and I don't think he would be amused in the least, but that isn't important.
We don't get to decide what people do with what we put out into the world!
The first piece is a classic of electronic dance music by Daft Punk. The second two are more edm styles, the last with the electronic specific "wobble" sound of dubstep imitated acoustically. I love edm and think it’s wonderful to treat it this way.
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I am not into EDM, and usually hate this sort of thing with every fiber of my being - but this is done so incredibly well I have very mixed feelings about it!
I am very invested in the music where the techniques come from, hence my interest.
I didn't realize you had to cite your sources every time you use a technique. I like to get on the mic and announce "this technique is actually based on Franz Simandl" before every gig I play.
Would you say that Bartok or Mahler using folk melodies as a basis for their compositions makes them unserious?
Answer one: When it gets this specific, maybe! Answer two It is a not a 1:1 relationship. In Batrok's day there wasn't an over arching gross, desperate trend of art spaces trying to turn themselves in dive bars and dance clubs to pander. There weren't new music ensembles named after Aphex Twin songs to pander. For example.
The pop / serious music dilemma isn't about good and bad or high and low or taste. It is about not letting music that such power over human beings (pop) into spaces where music with more subtle aims is supposed to be able exist on its own terms.
The elements of pop music are just too much for human beings to control. When you add in the popularity and monetary gains it is just impossible for performers and presenters to be impartial.
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This strikes me as surprisingly close-minded and snobbish for someone who is usually pretty open-minded. Have you listened deeply to Aphex (who is nothing like Daft Punk)? What are you being so purist about. There's a reason why experimental folks love it and Phillip Glass collaborates with him. It's not adding a cover of Eleanor Rigby to a soul-jazz set. It's a lot more like Stravinsky -- something radical which became popular with little effort to do so because of how challenging it is not despite it. Music today is not like you describe, a giant corporate machine making decisions. It is countless subcultures from weird Mexican hip-hop to Mumbai electronica which interact with and are sometime coopted by the mainstream but also have their own vibrant lives. More generally keeping subtle music in safe spaces keeps it away from many who might love it.
None of this bears on the Suggs which we all agree is awesome. And if someone listens to Daft Punk with open ears, awesome.
None of this bears on the Suggs which we all agree is awesome. And if someone listens to Daft Punk with open ears, awesome.
As I said, it is not about quality or taste. While it might seem marginalized, EDM has a thousand times more commercial & basic musical power than "new music".
EDM also has its own space, but if I have a problem with this it would be that it taking up space in the context where a Michael Pisaro solo should be - now that gets pushed aside for reasons I already listed. So, it is less about being purist than not wanting to allow music with more power dominate actually marginalized work.
The crucial thing is that this is not being performed in an EDM context.
The ethical model for this is Medeski, Martin & Wood: I don't care for the jammy stuff but, I respect the hell out of them doing it on the jam band circuit.
As far listening to Aphex twin - I have. I like him fine. I like him a thousand times more than I like Alarm Will Sound using his title pander - that is for sure!
EDM also has its own space, but if I have a problem with this it would be that it taking up space in the context where a Michael Pisaro solo should be - now that gets pushed aside for reasons I already listed. So, it is less about being purist than not wanting to allow music with more power dominate actually marginalized work.
The crucial thing is that this is not being performed in an EDM context.
The ethical model for this is Medeski, Martin & Wood: I don't care for the jammy stuff but, I respect the hell out of them doing it on the jam band circuit.
As far listening to Aphex twin - I have. I like him fine. I like him a thousand times more than I like Alarm Will Sound using his title pander - that is for sure!
All else aside, the music is really great! Thanks for posting.
After hearing Vijay Iyer, Linda Oh (amazing), and Tyshawn Sorey play Stevie Wonder's Overjoyed last night I stand by my opinion! As an aside I've never heard a drummer hit harder than Sorey, or play better. It was like some super-charged fusion of Elvin Jones, Roy Haynes, a funk drummer from the future, and an avant-garde classical percussionist.