Lettuce 1/4/14 Jam Cruise @ Pantheon Theatre (Part 1 of 3)
Last Suppit, By Any Shmeeans Necessary (with Ivan Neville):
Lettuce 1/4/14 Jam Cruise @ Pantheon Theatre (Part 2 of 3)
Don’t Be Afraid To Try (with Alecia Chakour & Kofi Burbridge), The Love You Left Behind [Syl Johnson cover] (with Alecia Chakour & Kofi Burbridge), Do Your Thing [Isaac Hayes cover] (with Alecia Chakour & Kofi Burbridge):
Lettuce 1/4/14 Jam Cruise @ Pantheon Theatre (Part 3 of 3)
Get On The Good Foot [James Brown cover] (with Nigel Hall):
If you’re not aware, The New Mastersounds are a hard working, non-stop touring, (mostly) instrumental funk machine from Leeds, England. On May 31, 2011, their tour swung through the Bluegrass State. Attendance was somewhat sparce due to the My Morning Jacket album release show occurring at the Louisville Palace the same night (a show that featured Erykah Badu as a special guest and was webcasted live to youtube by VEVO & American Express).
Nonetheless, The New Mastersounds gave all of their energy, playing over 2 hours without a set break. They even went off the written setlist for an impromptu cover of James Brown’s Get On The Good Foot. It was clear that they were having a great time, even if it was a Tuesday night and the crowd contained barely 100 people.
I shot about 30 minutes of stage-side video, which has been upgraded with my friend’s on-stage audio recording. This video contains 5 songs: Run the Gauntlet, You Got It All > Mark’s Red Guitar, Six Underground & Get On The Good Foot (James Brown cover):
If you’re in the Bluegrass State, The New Mastersounds will be back this Wednesday, September 7th, at Cosmic Charlies in Lexington, Kentucky.
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.
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.
