Archive for August, 2007

If I May
Blackalicious
Nia, 2000

I just got back from a nice short trip to VA to visit my friend Dale who’ve I’ve mentioned several times on this blog for putting me on to great music. We’ve been trading mix tapes and cds for the last ten years. This was the first time I actually got to look through his iTunes and there was a playlist with my name on it. It felt like I was cheating.

This song came onto my iPod via shuffling a couple days before I left and I immediately put it on my mental list of tracks to play for Dale when I got to VA. Needless to say, it was sitting on the playlist he made for me.

I just missed seeing Blackalicious perform at the Power To The Peaceful Festival in Golden Gate Park (San Francisco) last year. Perry and I were looking for a parking spot for about 15-20 minutes during which we could hear a distant echo of Blackalicious. When we finally got to there, we somehow entered the mass of people stage left which would have been perfect if Blackalicious hadn’t just gone off stage. Michael Franti was about to start (boo).

This track reminds me of sitting around a campfire which is pretty unique for a hip hop song.

>> songs are available for two weeks [5.2 MB]

Summer In The City
Quincy Jones
You’ve Got It Bad Girl, 1973

Summer In The City
Oscar Brown, Jr.
Oscar Brown, Jr. Goes To Washington, 1965

One of my main motivations for posting this Quincy Jones song was to ask if anyone knew who sampled the section from :53-1:02 but of course, I figured it out in the course of writing the post - and I’m really patting myself on the back because it wasn’t on my semi-trusty resource the-breaks.com. This is one of those songs that plays like a dream sequence for me - one of those dreams where I walk down a New York City street and turn a corner and I’m in Cleveland but it doesn’t seem strange. The Pharcyde sampled the intro on “She Keeps Passin’ Me By” which was immediately recognizable even in this much mellower format, then the song moves off into unfamiliar territory but just as I start to forget about the first sample, the section (:53-1:02) that Massive Attack sampled on “Exchange” comes in like an old friend who’s name I can’t remember. It goes as fast as it came and we continue until 1:55 where the Roots borrowed a bit for the chorus of “Clones.” That one took a minute to place as well because I don’t think of the Roots as a sampling group even though I’m pretty sure they’ve used samples on every album. Then Valerie Simpson’s vocals come in somewhat unexpectedly at 2:27 although, I guess they are right on time, as she starts in the middle of the second verse of the original (Lovin’ Spoonful) lyrics. I know that other people have also sampled this song but these three were definitely the most recognizable for me.

This Oscar Brown, Jr. song was a song that I was thinking about posting for a while but put off because I didn’t have much to say about it. I still don’t, other than it’s great and it’s not a cover of the Lovin’ Spoonful, it actually came out a year before.

>> songs are available for two weeks [5.5 MB]
>> songs are available for two weeks [4.8 MB]

The bottom photo is the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble which opened for Leela. Photos by me!

A Long Walk (Dodge Remix Pt. 1)
A Long Walk (A Touch of Jazz Remix)
Jill Scott
12″ Single, 2001

This record is on loan from DJ Firewheel. The Dodge Mix is a bit of a guilty gratifying pleasure. I’m a lover of Jill Scott, or let me rephrase, a lover of Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1 (and a few other songs) but there is very little of her’s that I can play in the middle of a DJ gig because it’s so mellow. The Dodge Mix is the strongest beat I’ve heard under her voice this side of “It’s Love,” plus it has a little Jodeci “Come & Talk To Me” interpolation…yeah, that’s good clean fun.

The Touch of Jazz Mix has appeared a few places before, including the Red Star Sounds, Vol. 1: Soul Searching compilation (not recommended for purchase) in 2001 and there was an interesting Jill Scott vs Jazzanova “A Long Walk (A Touch Of Jazz Mix) vs L.O.V.E. Beats” re-remix that appeared on Jazzanova’s …Mixing compilation in 2004. It’s probably the “better” mix musically but it’s, of course, as relaxing as the original. I love the chord/bell that comes in at 1:09.

If you are a DJ (or not) and you want 320 kbps files with BPMs and the Touch of Jazz instrumental, right click here (29MB).

>> songs are available for two weeks [6.2 MB]
>> songs are available for two weeks [6.0 MB]

Keep Him Like He Is
Syreeta Wright
Syreeta, 1972

Syreeta’s music is a fixture at the WONDER-Full™ parties and is a fairly frequent topic of music conversation for me and I often forget that she is fairly unknown on a larger scale. My friend DJ Scribe already wrote a really nice piece about Syreeta and Minnie Riperton that included this album so I don’t want to duplicate that other than to say that Syreeta was married to Stevie Wonder for a short time which included them working on this album together.

I wanted to profile this song because I’ve never heard it mentioned or played - which makes sense because it’s such a quiet tender song which also happens to switch off between an unusual meter (6/8?) and a more standard 4/4 (it’s pretty rare to hear a DJ who plays any kind of American pop music [Soul, Rock, Hip Hop, etc…] to play anything that’s not in 4/4 at a party). That’s why I need to start a slow jams party! Not like a Force M.D.’s/Keith Sweat style slow jams party but a party for that other half of the music I have on my Serato hardrive that I try to cram into the first half hour and last 15 minutes of my 5-6 hour sets!

>> songs are available for two weeks [3.9 MB]

Where Are We Going?
Marvin Gaye
The Very Best Of, 2001

This is a song that The Loop Professor put me onto a couple years back. It’s Marvin’s version of a song that was Donald Byrd’s Black Byrd album from 1973. It didn’t come out until this Best Of compilation from 2001. I never knew who’s song it was first until just now when I found this too-good-to-be true Q&A with the Mizell Brothers (the co-writers and producers of the song) that covers this at length. So, the story goes like this: Marvin put out “What’s Going On?” and blew everyone away but the expectation it created for his next record was more than he could handle. He shut down creatively and Motown started bringing in outside producers and songwriters to get things moving. Mizell Brothers did three songs with him that never came out (this was one but their favorite was actually another one called “Woman Of The World” that has never been released). Marvin eventually started working on the soundtrack to Trouble Man and the songs get shelved. With plans for a follow up clearly heading in a different direction, the Mizell Brothers recorded “Where Are We Going?” with Donald Byrd.

>> songs are available for two weeks [7.3 MB]

Nasty feat J Davey - J Dilla (from the Jay Loves Japan Bootleg)
Oh No Not My Baby - Aretha Franklin
Our Lives Are Too Short - Outlines [link]
Everytime - Restless Soul featuring Zansika [link]
Watercircles - Monassa [link]
My World - Lee Fields [link]
Idle Hands - Harlem River Drive
Joy and Pain - Maze
Funky Child - Lords of the Underground
Glad To Be Unhappy (DJ Logic Remix) - Billie Holiday [link]