Sandra's Music Influences

[Sandra]

OVERVIEW

Part 1 of this posting is a repetition of what I've already written about my music preferences in my User Introduction Thread
Part 2 of this posting contains additional recommendations for those that could identify with Part 1 enough to expect any more benefits from reading even a bit further.

PART 1

Hi!

I'm Sandra from Germany.
I'm born in the 70s and raised up mainly with Discofunk, Sophisti Pop and Acid Jazz.

I'm a medium skilled bass player who's also interested in learning the piano.

I like every kind of music which is groovy or which is arranged interestingly in some regard.

Anyway, there are a couple of genres which I like even more than others:

• As bass player, my favourite Genres are Funk (plus related Genres like Motown, Afro-Beat, Oldschool Rap, Acid Jazz,  Neo-Soul etc.), Gypsy Jazz and all kinds of Cuban music.
• As music listener I additionally appreciate the music from Brazil and Cabo Verde, as well as other kinds of Latin Music.
• In regard to learning the piano, I'm also pretty much interested in Blues, Gospel, Jazzfunk (e.g. Crusaders and Shakatak), Latin Jazz (e.g. the Latin stuff from Ramsey Lewis or from Mario Biondi) and 1920s/1930s Styles like New Orleans Jazz and Stride Piano.

My 5 all time favourite songs are:

• "Throughout Your Years" by Kurtis Blow
• "Funkin' for Jamaica (N.Y.)" by Tom Browne
• "Into My Soul" by Gabin feat. Dee Dee Bridgewater
• "Sex Machine" by James Brown
• "Canned Heat" by Jamiroquai.

My favourite songs in regard to Piano Solos and Piano Grooves are:

• Everything from Rubén Gonzáles (= the Piano Maestro from Buena Vista Social Club), e.g. "Chanchullo", "Pueblo Nuevo", "Mandinga" and many more
• The epic 1986 Live Album version of almost 12 minutes length of Sting's two connected songs "Bring On the Night / When the World is Running Down"
• 4 outststanding superfunky rap songs with terriffic Piano Grooves and Solos from 1980 by Kurtis Blow (= one of most important Oldschool Rap Pioneers): "Throughout Your Years", "Rappin' Blow (Part 2)", "The Breaks" and "Way Out West" (I found these songs even so interesting, that I have made custom orders for them at a Midi Shop, because I wanted to make sure that the world can buy these arrangements digitalized).

PART 2

So far what can also be read in my User Introduction Thread. Ongoing in this posting, I'd like to add some further recommendations, just as additional bullet points as they come into my mind, without any categorization into "bass player section", "listener section", "piano section", "personal favourites", "genres", "songs" or whatever else might be considerable as categories.

I think that I've developed quite a good general knowlegde in Music History.
And although I'm interested in many different genres, I'm quite picky about what in my opinion can be named " good music".
Sure, statements about "good music" are never totally free from personal taste. - But what I mean here, is songs resp. song versions that are really worth to memorize, e.g. because of an interesting arrangement or such.

So, well, here are my further music recommendations, to possibly be enhanced over the time, as a couple of more mentionable things may come into my mind at some time later:

• Harry Connick's Album "Eleven" as a great reference for Piano integration into New Orleans Jazz, in a more enjoyable sound quality than recordings from the original era of this Genre. Anyway, I'm also amazed by Originals like especially from Jelly Roll Morton.
• The samplers "100 Greatest Big Hits of the 1920's (Inspired by the Hit TV Series 'Downton Abbey')" - 4 Volumes of 100 songs each, available on itunes
• The Complete Motown Singles Collection of the Detroit Years (1959-1972)
• If you want to dive into the whole repertoire of the 3 most important Funk Pioneers, check out the following links: The Complete James Brown Singles Collection (11 volumes); the Sly & the Family Stone Discography; the Parliament/Funkadelic Discography, separated into Parliament Releases and Funkadelic Releases (same group of musicians, just two different band names, due to label/contract issues)
• The samplers "Greatest R'n'B Hits of 1940-1945" - 4 volumes, available on itunes (here's a link for Volume 1), also existing for later years.
• A very fine journey through the history of Cuban Music, including hand selected representative examples for each cuban genre as well as a lot of further song recommendations and expertised backgrounds in music theory, is offered by the book "Beyond Salsa for Beginners". And btw: This book belongs to a terrific broader series of "Beyond Salsa" books, which among others also cover 14 volumes about Cuban Piano Styles.
• I love to rummage in historic National Music Charts, as far as available, like - just as examples - in the Billboard 100 from the 29th of August 1960 or - from my own country - in the Official German Charts from the 12th of February 1979. By the way: Let me know if such "Historic Official Charts" websites on the basis of the original periods (in most cases that probably means by week) also exist for your country!
• Speaking about countries: A very fine radio show with an explicit international context (the main focus is on Modern World Music) from a German Radio Station - well, they speak German, which you might not be able to understand, but anyway ... who finally cares what they are talking about, if only they play a lot of fine Music 😉 - can be listened to on Monday to Thursday at 18:00 to 20.00 CET (Central European Time) at Cosmo Radio.
• And speaking about Radio, here's a link to my other favourite Radio Show, which can be listened to on Tuesdays at 17:00 to 18:00 CET (Central European Time): Out of Spectrum. This Radio Show is held by the owner of the well-reputated Jazz Club "Mojo Club" in Hamburg and mixes hand selected classic tunes with interesting new releases from the Jazz Genre and other Genres like Soul, Funk and Electro (Plus: a real treasure chamber are also the historic playlists of this Radio Show, which can be displayed via the "Alle Ausgaben" list). Also recommended from this source is the more or less static radio week of Mojo Radio, as well as the 13 volumes of the Mojo Club "Dancefloor Jazz" Samplers.
• In regard to TV Shows, I'd like to recommend the DVDs of the Complete (or to be more precise: almost complete - only a very few editions are not included) "Beat Club" Show. These DVDs, which are also available for download on itunes, represent so much the spirit of the German 60s and also give an entertaining overview over the International 60s Rock History. I'd wish that such complete DVD collections would also exist for the German TV music shows "Disco 71/72/73/etc." and "Formel Eins", as well as for the US TV show "Soul Train" (omg, how much I love the line dances!)
• For keeping your music history knowledge "up-to-date" within your very personal taste, I can strongly recommend to check out the weekly renewed user-specific "Release Radar" on Spotify.
  If you install Spotify on your PC, you can listen to everything (including unlimited own playlists) free of charge and free of shuffled song orders (other than on mobile devices, where Spotify allows Non-Premiums only to listen to shuffled playlists).
  I recommend in specific:
  1) Copy the songs from the Release Radar into an own playlist, each week
  2) Then listen to each new own playlist for a while
  3) throw out all tunes, which are not really remarkable
  4) Merge your remaining weekly top songs into "Monthly Favourites" playlists
  That's how I do it, at least, and I'm superhappy with that, although I'm far behind the calendar - well, this is a lot of fun and it's satisfying in regard to not getting sticked to classic tunes only, but it's for sure also consuming quite a lot of time. Although I think that we are not talking about more time here than we all spent in front of Music TV and in front of the Radio when we were kids - but we just don't have that much time anymore as adults. Anyway, spending at least some time with this is in my opinion still the most efficient way to avoid missing all the new "hot shit", since we will probably agree that in the 2010s, Mainstream Radio Shows, Music TV Shows and National Charts are in most cases more painful than they would help to stay reasonably updated.
• I have published a couple of my own monthly favourites from the "Release Radar" (from the 4th quarter of 2017) in my own Spotify account. If you're interested in checking them out, feel free to visit My Public Spotify Playlists; my Spotify Username is "thegroovecounts".
• I own many albums from Brazil's early Bossa Nova era and I go on collecting those. My favourite artists from that time are Sergio Mendes, Astrud Gilberto, Joao Gilberto,  Sylvia Telles and Jorge Ben. From a bit later I like mostly Elis Regina, and from the younger era of Brazilian Music I like pretty much Seu Jorge and Emicida.
• I also began to explore the roots of Reggae, for which there turned out as a good starting point this Jamaica Hit Parade 1959 Sampler plus a couple of Samplers from the traditional Jamaican "Mento" Genre.
• I pretty much love the flute and the vibraphone, especially in genres where they are not typical. Recently, we had a flute player with us when we covered "London Calling" from the Punk Band "The Clash" - and the result was terrific! If you also like such combinations, check out Herbie Mann (flute over many different genres) and Roy Ayers (vibraphone, mostly in the funk genre).
• I love going to Concerts and Music Festivals. My favourite Festival - as a recommendation especially for European fellows, since those might be able to reach out to Rotterdam: Visit the "North Sea Jazz Festival" at least once in your life (well ... if you are lucky enough to get tickets at some time in the future).
• In order to virtually visit concerts, I suggest the endless variety of NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts, among which I'd like to pick as specific recommendations - only at least - the performances of "Tank and the Bangas" and "Fantastic Negrito".
• As session videos, I'd like to recommend the Youtube videos from Daryl's House, e.g. with Kenny Loggins and this epic video of Newen Afrobeat feat. Seun Kuti and Cheick Tidiane Seck.
• I also love watching the Youtube Channel of the Wilson Family, which is called "Wilson World". Have you ever asked yourself, how many years it would need to become a good drummer? - Check this out!
• My favourite Gospel videos: "Joy to the World" by the Temple Praise Band and, mainly for bass fans, this great performance of Clarance Raeford III.
• Oh dear ... seems that finally I landed on the Bass again haha ... well ok, then here are also my favourite bass players: James Jamerson, Bootsy Collins, Larry Graham, Pino Palladino, Nathan East, Donald Dunn, Leland Sklar ... and Davie504 🙂

Hmmm ... OK, that's it for now. Maybe I'll add a few more recommendations to the list above at some time later and/or maybe I'll put a few more things into other postings of this thread at some time later (but also maybe neither the one nor the other, since I think that this was already quite a lot of stuff).

 

[Sandra]

Additional recommendations & Update 2022:

• My favourite Jonny-Arrangements: 80's Songs in Ragtime , National Anthems in Ragtime , Rubber Duckie Stride Version .
• A terrific journey through different styles along one of my favourite Vaudeville Songs: "After You've Gone" performed by Jimin Park .
• Like many others here at PWJ, I love the Youtube Channel of Yohan Kim. If you're not already aware of his tasteful jazzfunk and gospel piano stuff, check out his videos, and you might also want to consider buying a couple of midis from his website.
• Matt Johnson from Jamiroquai offers a couple of very fine funk piano/keyboard tutorials on his Youtube Channel. Some of those are also buyable, btw.
• An interesting Channel for Blues Piano with buyable midis: Christian Fuchs .
• Also check out the Best Montuno Quickstart Video in the web by Michael Hartigan .
• My favourite Bass Education Channels: Talking Bass and MarloweDK .
• Other outperforming Youtube Channels with educational or analytical approaches: In regard to general music topics like harmony David Bennett and Signals Music Studio , in regard to guitar stuff - mainly entertaining to me since I don't want to play the guitar - Marty Schwarz and Morrisman Smith , and in regard to voice analyzes "British Guitarist analyses ... (e.g. Frank Sinatra)".
• I'm always happy when I encounter good compilations from the early time of music recording, especially when they are well sorted year by year, as, even for early music from my own country, the series "Die Schlager des Jahres 19xx" (e.g. 1930) is.
• Lindy Hop at its best: Snippets of the movie "Swing Kids" - although not labeled correctly there (that's the energetic Benny Goodman Version with Gene Krupa at the Drums, not a Louis Prima version).
• Quite entertaining as well as impressive: This conversation between Jacob Collier and Charlie Puth .
• I should also mention my All-Time Favourite Complete Album, which is from a German Jazzfunk Band with awesome arrangements: Fritz Brause: Bow-Tie and Rubberboots .
• And, also among my favourites, another outstanding album from my country - mainly piano driven, but also with quite interesting parts from other instruments: 80s Sophisti-Pop by Channel 5: The Colour of a Moment .