The Roots & Brass Heaven – 2007 Tour

The Roots & Brass Heaven – Game Theory > Star > Sing A Simple Song > Long Time > I Ain’t No Joke > Get On The Good Foot (3/11/07 NYC @ Nokia Theatre)

Back in early 2007, The Roots went on tour with a 4 piece brass band named Brass Heaven. In my opinion, this tour was the absolute apex of The Roots as a touring unit.

The setlist was awesome, with covers of tunes by Sly Stone, Rakim, James Brown, The JBs, Kool & The Gang, The Police, The New Birth and even Ram Jam’s “Black Betty.”

The energy on these shows was just through the roof. Questlove had a glow in the dark, black and white camo drum kit and even brought out a small trap kit to play at the front of the stage for the JB’s portion of the show. They closed each show with a 15 minute funked out version of The New Birth’s “I Can Understand It” (this arrangement eventually morphed into the arrangement used for the title track on the Roots last album, How I Got Over) complete with a Soul Train Line with each and every band member dancing through.

The track at the top of the page is the first 20 minutes of the show (taken from an excellent audience recording, courtesy of It’s All The Way Live). That track begins with The Roots & Brass Heaven marching into the theatre from the back, unamplified, in New Orleans street parade fashion. Note Black Thought’s dead on recital of Rakim’s “I Ain’t No Joke” verses (& the pitch perfect recreation of the horn stabs of The JB’s “Pass The Peas,” which Eric B. & Rakim sampled for the original track). Also, don’t miss the subleties that the sousaphone adds to the bottom end throughout.

The Roots & Brass Heaven – Gimme Some More > Way With Words (2/20/07 Austin, TX @ Stubbs BBQ)

This second track is from the middle portion of the show (taken from a SBD source). It begins with a workout on The JB’s “Gimme Some More,” played by only Brass Heaven & Questlove (playing at the front of the stage on a small trap kit). This segues into the re-entrance of the full Roots band and the performance of an unreleased tune, roughly titled “Brown Sugar Jawn” aka “Way With Words.” The tune is based on the music of D’angelo’s Brown Sugar with Black Thought’s “Way With Words” verses on top.

Big thanks to sol-exposure for the Tuba Gooding Jr. pic. Check out her site, as she has many great live music pictures.

George Porter Jr’s 63rd Birthday Bash (VIDEO)

I had the pleasure of spending last Christmas in New Orleans. I was also fortunate enough to catch George Porter Jr‘s annual Birthday Bash at the Howlin’ Wolf on the last night of my stay (before driving 12 hours back to Kentucky the next morning).

With George’s permission, I mounted my new HD video camera to the side of Nick Burlison’s audio recording rig, and when the crowd poured out onto the chilly St. Peters Street at 3:15am I had nearly 4 hours of footage! I even shot a few songs from the front row with my iPhone4, which allowed me to make a 2-cam mix for several tunes. The audio on this one is simply top notch. It’s a matrix mix of Louie Liokis’ on-stage schoeps mics and a soundboard patch.

The entire performance, a 4 DVD set, is available to download here: http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/showthread.php?t=89960

The night began with a 90 minute set from George Porter’s Runnin’ Pardner‘s band. This set featured several classic Meters tunes like Borro, What’Cha Say, & The Dragon, as well as a reworking of Curtis Mayfield‘s “Check Out Your Mind” which exemplifies the way George holds down the groove. George’s wife brought out a cake and his granddaughter came out and sang a diva-like rendition of Happy Birthday. The set ended with a solo performance of a song from George’s new EP of Christmas songs, “Christmas In New Orleans.”

The second set was a free for all of guest players: Stanton Moore, Anders Osborne, Kirk Joseph, Brian Stoltz, June Yamagishi, Tony Hall, Russell Batiste, Eric Bolivar, Terence Higgins, etc. Seven different drummers and five different guitarists! At one point, you had a triple guitar threat of Tony Hall, June Yamagishi, & Brint Anderson ripping through Them Changes & Third Stone From The Sun.

To close out the night, George brought out Billy Iuso & CR Gruver for some Grateful Dead tunes, topping it off with a cover of Sugaree, a song that George has really made his own while touring with Bill Kreutzmann & Papa Mali in their new band, 7 Walkers.