The harvest moon is coming. This is my lane, in every actual sense. I talk too much and want to say more with less, as I’ve said over and over and over again, so let the music play. I have lost all my words.
Brooklyn, New York. The County Of Kings. I could list the the reasons why living here is the best but that list would always be incomplete, as I learn something about my home every day that I walk these streets (and I do a LOT of walking, mind you.) But ultimately Brooklyn is a place that is made out of the fabric of my dreams. Since I first started visiting here in the very early 90s to when I first moved here in 1994 (to Williamsburg before it was “Williamsburg” – I guess making me an original hipster) to when I finally came up for good in the early 21st Century, I have fallen in love with this place over and over again. Perhaps the only place that I’ve been to that struck me as hard was on my recent visit to New Orleans. But that is another story, for another time, about a different type of magic, and another place made of a silk and satin of a different set of dreams, and a story that is yet to come.
Brooknam, The Planet, is easily one of the most culturally rich places on earth and that’s reflected in the creations that pays homage to it. You can run down a laundry list of songs, art, literature, cinema, that all are their own love song to this mighty place on earth, but one always comes to mind first and foremost – I’m talking about the Roy Ayers masterpiece “We Live In Brooklyn Baby” from his 1972 album “He’s Coming.”
It’s funny to me that such an impassioned song about the outer-borough would have been written by an Los Angeles native. But you can hear the love and the desperation to succeed in the pocket of the arrangement of the one and only Harry Whitaker. Harry Whitaker was a one-of-a-kind genius who was one of those musicians whom you knew his work, you knew his sound, but you never knew him. He was born in Florida, raised in Detroit, but eventually located to Mighty Mighty Fort Greene (my current place of residence.) No wonder that the song sounds so absolutely genuine to me. I knew that Harry was still alive and active in the New York jazz scene for years, and so it was a bit of a shock to me when I found out last November that he had passed away at the young age of 68. Immediately on my Facebook I started to post records and songs that I knew he had been involved with, and as I delved further and further into his oeuvre I was kind of shocked at the depth of it.
One of the sad testaments of the modern age, and with the way that we’re all plugged in at all times, hardwired to the word and the constant stream of media and information, is that sometime the news of someone’s passing comes hastily and unexpected through the channels of social media and general connectivity. I remember Saturday, August 29th, 2009 quite well. I had just left Portland, OR that morning after an amazing show at Branx, the ultimate night for our tour. Me and the 3 other DJs I was touring with all went our separate ways, me heading north to Seattle. After landing and settling in at my hotel room, I turned on my computer and immediately bombarded with a torrent of messages, Tweets, Facebook status updates – DJ AM is dead. Dazed, I did my best to get confirmation, to verify, to somehow learn that this terrible news of the death of OUR KING, and someone whom I had know for almost my entire life, had left the planet. Once I learned it was true, one of the first things I did was call my DJ friend whom I had just been with in Portland the night before, who was one of his closest friends (he shall remain unnamed out of respect.) In a shaky voice to him I said Man I just can’t believe this, this can’t be happening. What are you talking about, replied my friend. I asked him Have you not turned on your computer or anything like that? No I just to the hotel not too long ago he said. I gently said to my friend, Man, can you please have a seat? I have something to tell to you… And as awful as I still feel about having to be the one to tell him that our friend had died, as terribly guilty as I will always feel for having to make it so that I am so intrinsically tied to a moment of such pain in my friends life, I still don’t regret being the one who told him. I’m glad that he heard it from me, as opposed to how I learned about it, from a torrent of Tweets from strangers and the name of my friend splashed across the front page of TMZ.
Now you might think that story was an awfully strange turn from my tale of Harry Whitaker, of a Brooklyn love affair, but it’s not. You see, the day of his passing, and in my initial foray into posting information about this guy and his work and his legacy and quiet but potent impact, I forgot that maybe he was not just some mythological figure but a real man of flesh and blood that people knew and cared for. Not long after my Facebook tribute to Harry I got a phone call from one of my oldest Brooklyn DJ comrades, DJ Monk-One. Andrew and I go way back and he’s not only one of the DJs I most admire and respect but also one of the guys that I have a kinship on a musical level more than most. Cos, is this true about Harry he asked. Sadly I had broken a rule that I established a year before, and let someone know about a passing of a loved one in a most impersonal manner. See, Monk and Harry were tight. We got to rapping about the dude, his power and genius, and mostly about the relationship that Monk had established with Harry during the last years of his life. It was at that time that Monk revealed to me that he had, in his possession, a copy of a recording of “We Live in Brooklyn Baby” that Harry had done recently, that had never been heard by any ears before. Of course you know I’m going to want to live and needed to hear it ASAP. Monk slid it my way and I was floored by the sublime jazzy take on this masterpiece. A true reinvention. 7 months later (meaning TODAY) as I looked out my lofty window at BAM and the Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower, at Fort Greene Park and LIU, I was reminded about how much I love it here, and I pulled up on iTunes “We Live In Brooklyn Baby.” And then I saw the secret version by Harry Whitaker. And I listened to it, and it moved me, and I had to ask Monk about sharing it with the world. With his blessing, and the story behind it, here it is. Monk, take it away…
“The story behind that unreleased We Live In Brooklyn: Around the time I talked to Harry for that Wax Poetics article, I had the idea of hooking him up with Kenny Dope to do a new version of We Live In Brooklyn, ala MAW’s version of Nautilus: a respectful, musical but tough update. Kenny, Harry and I actually met and listened to some stuff, including the unreleased 1981 sessions with Bartz and Sybil Thomas mentioned in the article. Harry wasn’t particularly interested in doing the WLIB remake but was eager to see something come of that other session. For various, typical reasons (scheduling, etc) nothing ever came of those projects.
Fast forward to last year, when I happened to be DJing at a lounge on the same block as the pizza place where Harry played every Thursday. I hadn’t seen him in a while, and it was slow at the lounge, so I put on a mix and dashed down the street to see if he was there. He was. Same as usual, doing his thing while waitresses hoisted trays of drinks and pizza over the piano, most people not paying much attention, with the exception of the small clique of musicians and singers who would always gather in awe of his talents. We talked for a couple minutes, and as I was leaving he suddenly said, “Hey remember that We Live In Brooklyn thing we were talking about years ago? I finally recorded a version with my band. In fact, I have a CD-R of it right here if you want to listen.” I grabbed the disc and ran back down the block hoping the manager at the other spot hadn’t noticed I was gone.
I wasn’t really expecting much when I popped the disc in and listened on the cue a few minutes later. You know how older jazz and soul dudes tend to ruin their early, killer tunes by trying to make them “hip.” But you should’ve seen the grin on my face when I heard what he’d done. Sick! Tablas, drums popping, nice acoustic bass and piano. Wow. I called him the next day to urge him to let me put it out as a single. Again, after trading a few phone calls the whole subject sort of faded away as other daily business took precedent. Anyway, I still have the disc of course, and hope to contact his son to see about releasing it. I assume it will be a lot harder now that Harry’s not around to greenlight it, but who knows.
I will miss his dry sense of humor and the unmistakable glow that came from being in the presence of a legend…”
Thanks Monk, for sharing that story, for sharing this music, and for allowing me to share this music with the world. For those of you out there, know this – there are few DJs that I respect as much as Monk One, from both the perspective of being an artist as well as a human. If you get a chance to see him do his thing, do it. If you get a chance to BOOK HIM at your show, do it. Me need more fellas with this much authenticity out there continuing to carry the torch for music that truly matters. Check out his Facebook Page, and also the site of his crew, Names You Can Trust.
Greetings, all… and welcome to my brand new version of my website!I think it was about time that I moved into the 21st century and stopped having a jawn that was like 1997 HTML. Anyway, I’m really glad to have this up finally and it was a ton of work. But I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the help of my cousin Jonah Birns who designed this whole thing, and made it happen for me. He’s extremely talented and should get recognized for his work. Check out his site -the super super dope The Long Years – and drop him a line if you’re with it. Like I said, he really deserves the recognition. Also big shout to my friends Mike Davis AKA Mike The 2600 King of Twelve Car Pileup / Burlesque Of North America for the design of my fly logo that you see about, and also my main man Kenny Rodriguez who took the photo above (and all the official photos) that you see of me. Now there are a few things that I’m going to have to tighten up on the site but we’re off to the races for the most part. Expect the site to actually be going into overdrive with tons of brand new and cool content. AND, as an added bonus, you can finally leave comments on the jawn so if you like something, please let me know, and if there’s something that you want to see, don’t hesitate to ask. Now, with that all said, let’s delve into one of the site’s most popular features. It is Tuesday, after all…
This go-round for Breakbeat Tuesday, I have the pleasure of introducing you to my man The Gaff. Gaff hails from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada, AKA the REAL Great White North. To be honest with you I didn’t really have any idea as to what it was like up there until several months ago when I got a chance to rock at the club where Gaff has his residency, Scratch. I was blow away with the openness and receptiveness of the people. As it turns out, Gaff has been steady serving the residents of that town with a healthy dose of rare and obscure funk and goodies, eventually training his denizens to get down to the most excellent and bizarre.
So as we got to know each other, it happens that we both posted on the same record collecting website (#NerdAlert) and had a bunch of mutual friends. Then as we got to speaking about music and – in particular – record collecting, I found that this motherfucker has like some of the deepest crates of almost anyone that I have ever encountered. Just 2 weeks ago I sent him the MP3s of a very rare Turkish freakbeat record from the early seventies and he promptly sent me back a photo of him pulling it out of his stacks, saying “Oh you mean this one?” And the first time I was in Saskatoon I went over to his house to have a vinyl listening & ripping session with Vinyl Ritchie and Gaff and Ritchie just decided that he had to hit me off with a CTI 7″ of Deodado’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” Oh, and did I mention that Gaff makes some seriously DOPE party breaks? Okay, woith no further ado, I present to you Breakbeat Tuesday with special guest The Gaff:
When Cos asked me if I’d like to contribute to one of his “Breakbeat Tuesdays” shortly after looking through some records at my crib during the summer, I didn’t hesitate given I have my own private “Vinyl Ripping Mondays.” Upon going through one of my “playout” 45 boxes, he holds up Mel Torme’s “Comin’ Home Baby” and says “What’s the deal with this one, like, THE dude Mel Torme?” – And I’m like, “You know this song bro, it’s classic.”
Torme’s version released in 1962 whopping in at over 140 BPM, is a vocal take on a tune composed by Ben Tucker and recorded the year before with Herbie Mann at the Village Gate in New York, 1961. Ben played bass in the Village Gate session, and what a beautiful Latin infused session that was! Recorded with flute, 2 percussionists, bass, drums and vibraharp, the Village Gate session was heaviily influenced by a concert tour to South America earlier that year. Mel Torme (following the advice of his producer) popularized it the following year, singing it (with lyrics written by Bob Dorough of “3 Is The Magic Number” fame) on his debut Atlantic album, in which he also played the drums, and churned out a song & arrangement to be covered for the ages. Comin Home Baby has been covered numerous times, in various countries around the world, in a variety of styles.Peep Melvin Taylor’s funky contemporary guitar workout below:
I personally first heard it many years ago on the Herbie Mann “At The Village Gate” LP, and only after hearing some other cover versions did I come across the Mel Torme vocal original… COVERS, COVERS, COVERS. At some point in the mid 70’s, in one of the miracles of “covering” standards, some Japanese individuals were led to rethink the tempo, speed up the herbie mann arrangement, make it funky, keep it classy, put in some drum breaks and latin percussion for good measure and give you, in my beat-diggin opinion, the sweetest version in almost 50 years of the songs existence, easily trumping other versions by regular digging favourites (Booker T & The MG’s, The Peddlars, Soulful Strings, & Quincy Jones to name a few.)
There happen to be 2 prominent break laden flute instrumental covers of the song that I know about, both on rare & obscure LPs – one from Japan, oozing smooth class, and one from Finland with a rawer funk sound. Since I think people should do some of the work themselves, Cosmo gets both versions, and you the people get the other one… Definitely not cheap to produce! We actually used a scan of one of the photos from this book for the inside cover of the Trip Beyond album. The material on the “groove” side is all covers, super groovy covers actually of “Venus,” “House Of The Rising Sun,” Lalo Schifrin’s “The Cat,” “Comin Home Baby” etc… The last tune being the highlight with an intro break and even longer mid-track break – my ideal as a break loving / backspinning DJ. This cover is pure class, and I’ve used it for all sorts of occasions, namely to flip the sound of the night into a more classy affair – the sound of that flute FILLS a room!
But then again, I use cover versions of songs in almost every occasion as a DJ anyways… which leads me to go on to say that playing cover versions (hopefully from records you own) has always been a great way to stand out with a unique sound as a DJ. Enabling a person to really express their records / skills / knowledge as a DJ with their own sound and taste, popularize or bring back tunes, while still playing the melodies that people know and keep them dancing (or grooving depending on your time slot and engagement.) It blows me away that in 2010 we can rip a rare record, change it’s sonic structure to suit our needs, and instantly have “virtual doubles” to cut up (via Serato,) not having to wait to find a 2nd copy of a rare record with a break or loop. Every day that I rip records at home I feel like a kid in a candy store that gets everything two-for-one! More reason than EVER to go to your local record store, and buy a break knowing that you can rip it, flip it into an mp3 and cut it up in a matter of minutes. Record digging is a lifestyle and hobby unto itself aside from DJing (yet totally complementing it) and I’d like to give a big thanks to Cos for spending all this time educating the masses with this column.
Also, can I make some Breakbeat Tuesday guest requests Cos? 3 dudes I’d love to see what they bring to the table are Supreme, Uncle Nu, and Anonymous (Sampo) – 3 people who’s digging tastes have influenced ALOT of people including myself each in different ways over the years… (Okay I will work on that my dude – C)
Word, thank YOU Gaff! That’s is dope and efinitely doing the knowledge. I look forward to rocking with you again my man. And for those of you who don’t know please make sure to check out The Gaff’s Soundcloud – he has got funky shit for days! Thanks again for tuning in for yet another Breakbeat Tuesday!
So it just happened by chance that the past 2 Breakbeat Tuesdays were with songs featuring one of the greatest drummers of our time, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie so this week I decided to dedicate solely to this man who is one of the greatest of all time and without a doubt one of the godfathers of the breakbeat.
To say that Pretty Purdie changed the game is an understatement. His unique innovations in drumming changed the way that not only the instrument was played in pop music but also in the way that it was recorded. And his innovations in rhythm and time are invaluable. Let’s not mention that his drumming can be found on basically the laundry list of the GOATS of music – James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Gil Scott Heron, Steely Dan, Curtis Mayfield, The Beatles, Miles Davis, Hall & Oates, The Rolling Stones and so on and so on.
When I was in school (and yes, I went to college for this music shit haha…) one of the things that I studied was the ancient African tradition of spacing, breath, time or air interspersed between the notes in music and how that empty space was just as important if not more to the construct of the song. The notes, beats, melody are the materials that the song is made up of but the empty space between all of that, the “ups” or the “ands” is actually where the song truly lives. I don’t want to go to far into it because that’s like thesis material, but point being, Purdie has a philosophy with his drumming that is pretty much exactly this. He calls it his “ghostnotes” as you can see in his explanation here.
Pretty Purdie is directly responsible for so many famous recorded drum beats in history it’s ridiculous. But here are just a few that I love and want to share with the world. The first one is the ferocious “Soul Drums” off of the also titled album from 1968. Basically it’s just a soul-jazz saxophone vamp that kindly steps out of the way when Purdie is ready to come in and blow the roof off the place with absolutely THUNDEROUS drumming. See for yourself.
Next up is the song “Hap’nin” from the Purdie composed soundtrack to “Lialeh.” For those that don’t know, “Lialeh” is an adult film (called “The Black Deep Throat”) in 1974. I’ve never seen it, but this is a pretty dope instrumental funk jam from the soundtrack.
Last but not least is a track from the 1977 collaboration album between Purdie and The Last Poets. I think this is a great track that showcases his drumming as the sole instrument in a song and the driving force, even when it doesn’t actually stand out in front and more just rides in the background as the wave that The Poets can ride on.
Dante’s Hifi – Miami – April 20 
So as we got to know each other, it happens that we both posted on the same record collecting website (#NerdAlert) and had a bunch of mutual friends. Then as we got to speaking about music and – in particular – record collecting, I found that this motherfucker has like some of the deepest crates of almost anyone that I have ever encountered. Just 2 weeks ago I sent him the MP3s of a very rare Turkish freakbeat record from the early seventies and he promptly sent me back a photo of him pulling it out of his stacks, saying “Oh you mean this one?” And the first time I was in Saskatoon I went over to his house to have a vinyl listening & ripping session with Vinyl Ritchie and Gaff and Ritchie just decided that he had to hit me off with a CTI 7″ of Deodado’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” Oh, and did I mention that Gaff makes some seriously DOPE party breaks? Okay, woith no further ado, I present to you Breakbeat Tuesday with special guest The Gaff:
There happen to be 2 prominent break laden flute instrumental covers of the song that I know about, both on rare & obscure LPs – one from Japan, oozing smooth class, and one from Finland with a rawer funk sound. Since I think people should do some of the work themselves, Cosmo gets both versions, and you the people get the other one… Definitely not cheap to produce! We actually used a scan of one of the photos from this book for the inside cover of the Trip Beyond album. The material on the “groove” side is all covers, super groovy covers actually of “Venus,” “House Of The Rising Sun,” Lalo Schifrin’s “The Cat,” “Comin Home Baby” etc… The last tune being the highlight with an intro break and even longer mid-track break – my ideal as a break loving / backspinning DJ. This cover is pure class, and I’ve used it for all sorts of occasions, namely to flip the sound of the night into a more classy affair – the sound of that flute FILLS a room!
But then again, I use cover versions of songs in almost every occasion as a DJ anyways… which leads me to go on to say that playing cover versions (hopefully from records you own) has always been a great way to stand out with a unique sound as a DJ. Enabling a person to really express their records / skills / knowledge as a DJ with their own sound and taste, popularize or bring back tunes, while still playing the melodies that people know and keep them dancing (or grooving depending on your time slot and engagement.) It blows me away that in 2010 we can rip a rare record, change it’s sonic structure to suit our needs, and instantly have “virtual doubles” to cut up (via Serato,) not having to wait to find a 2nd copy of a rare record with a break or loop. Every day that I rip records at home I feel like a kid in a candy store that gets everything two-for-one! More reason than EVER to go to your local record store, and buy a break knowing that you can rip it, flip it into an mp3 and cut it up in a matter of minutes. Record digging is a lifestyle and hobby unto itself aside from DJing (yet totally complementing it) and I’d like to give a big thanks to Cos for spending all this time educating the masses with this column.
