What I’m listening to’ is a weekly series of music that reigns at the top of my personal playlist. Music that I think is cool and deserves a mention and some attention.
This week: Snarky Puppy.
Two weeks ago, I got to see this band live when they were playing the first of their two release shows for the brand new album ‘Sylvia’. A masterpiece that exceeds all limits that pop music might have. Of course playing with one of the greatest orchestra’s in the world ‘The Metropole Orchestra’ (with which they also recorded ‘Sylvia’) could also be seen as an advantage 😉
A while ago, when I was strolling the youtubezz for some good piano movies, I found a video of a guy named Shawn Martin, who was playing a very musical interpretation of some good old Michael Jackson tunes on piano.
When I saw a comment that recommended another video -of his own band-, where he played a juicy little synth solo (gotta love that Moog sound), I decided to go check that out as well.
As it appeared he was part of a huge live band where next to him, there were two other guys playing keys (Rhodes, Hammond, Moogs, they’re all there… wowwww), there were horns, guitars, strings, percussion.. just a totally awesome instrumentation. I checked out some vids of their then brand new live recording (LIVE!) ‘Ground UP’ and was simply blown away. The one were Shawn plays that synth solo is this one:
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The music -a mix between jazz, soul, funk, groove and just pure geniality- instantly got to me. Very high class stuff. However, in the plethora of good music, I kinda forgot about them.
When about a year later I got tipped that “this was a band to keep an eye out for” (read: super cool and insanely talented musicians) by my good friend Andrew (who is an awesome guitarist and old band mate of mine from back in the ‘Cloud‘ days, check out his youtube channel here) I thought to myself “Oh yeah! They were awesome!” and fell back into the mighty trap of the youtube-maze.
This time I most notably stumbled upon this video of them (same show, different song), where apart from it just being one of the coolest songs ever, there is a keyboard solo of another keyboardist named Cory Henry that is just… well just take a look and be amazed at what you can do with keys (for the ‘untrained’ ear, his solo might require some ‘getting used to’, but really, if you’re even the slightest bit entertained by this song and like piano’s and keys, I strongly advice you to listen to it a couple of times):
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So, then I gave up piano. 🙂
No, kidding of course, but this guy really is out of this world and has become a true inspiration for me ever since. There really is only a handfull of people on this planet that will ever be capable of playing anything like this.
Then, as said, two weeks ago I went to their new show and, well, got blown away on yet another whole new level all over again. Check this song out which is piano-starring as well. One of my favorite tunes. Oh yeah, might be nice to know that the band leader (bass guy), told the audience that night that the whole ‘Sylvia’ album is inspired by different forests. How cool is that. Every song resembles a FOREST.
I know, it’s maybe kinda more ‘film score music’ than actual ‘pop’, but I feel they push the boundaries of pop towards film. Not play film in a pop style. Catch my drift?
Enjoy one of the greatest bands of this moment, from the top of my playlist for over three weeks already and What I’m currently Listening To non-stop: Snarky Puppy.
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Ps. I honestly could write 10 more pages, recommending dozens of other tracks by them, but to keep this post sort of ‘manageable’ … ok shit I HAVE to give you ONE more, since I think this was the one Andrew pointed me to, featuring the -no superlative is big enough- Lalah Hathaway who sings CHORDS on this track (somewhere halfway at the breakdown). Yes. Chords. On her own. Holy…
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