Tag: The Roots

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.

Mos Def, Robert Glasper, & DJ Preservation 2/8/11 NYC @ The Blue Note

Mos Def, Robert Glasper, & DJ Preservation – Bedstuy Parade & Funeral March 2/8/11 NYC @ The Blue Note

Mos Def performed at the Blue Note in New York City last week with a unique lineup of Robert Glasper on keys and his regular DJ, DJ Preservation, on turntables, MPC, and live samples. Mos also had a drumkit set up which he played for most of the show while singing and rhyming. It’s not the first time that Mos has performed from behind a drumkit, but this performance produced plenty of J Dilla influenced improv and some interesting chilled out versions of Mos Def classics.

Luckily my good friend HighVoltage was on deck with mics rolling. He posts plenty of live hip hop, so be sure to check out his blog: http://www.itsallthewaylive.net/. (He recently posted a young jazz group’s [Stray Phrases] rendition of the entire Donuts album by J Dilla. Highly recommended.)

Keep in mind that all of the tracks I post on soundcloud can be downloaded by clicking the down arrow located right below the “info” button.

Lettuce at Jam Cruise & Brooklyn Bowl 2011

Lettuce – Move On Up (Curtis Mayfield cover) 1/18/11 Brooklyn Bowl

Lettuce is a funk band that features Eric Krasno (of Soulive) and Adam Deitch (of Break Science). They are funky and have a killer horn section. They’ve been tearing up the live shows lately from Bear Creek (with the JB Horns) to the Caribbean Ocean to NYC.

Full pro-shot video of their Jam Cruise set can be viewed over at Iclips.net: http://www.iclips.net/watch/lettuce-1-6-201
I recommend clicking on the next to last song, Hang Up Your Hangs Ups [a Herbie Hancock & The Headhunters cover] as well as Break Out > Relax.

Barely a week later, on January 18, 2011, Lettuce played a Haiti benefit at the Brooklyn Bowl with Dr. John & Maceo Parker. It was rumored that Prince might show up after his Madison Square Garden gig, but that unfortunately didn’t happen. However, Questlove & Nikki Glaspie (Beyonce’s live drummer) both showed up and luckily there was a second drum kit set up for some extended break beat jams around some James Brown covers.

My friend Scott Bernstein recorded audio of the Brooklyn Bowl show and its one of the best recordings to come out of that room since it opened as a venue just over a year ago. It’s available to stream and/or download at the Live Music Archive in both 16-bit and 24-bit.

The track i’ve shared above is a cover of Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up” with a scorching guitar solo from Eric Krasno. See if you catch the three line quote from Bilal’s All That I Am (it’s at 3min6sec).

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