This edition of the JBs, with Clyde Stobblefield on drums and Bootsy Collins on bass is as different from the band that played on Live at the Apollo, Vol. II, released only two years earlier, as the storied 100 mile per gallon carburetor would be from a Hummer. The earlier music is classic, but the music made on this album constitutes one of the half dozen most pivotal shifts in 20th Century music. The only other musician to grasp the uniqueness of its implications compositionally was Miles Davis, but not as dance music, as which it is unequaled. It is as if James Brown invented something as pivotal as lightbulbs or automobiles but no one else could ever manufacture them. “Give It Up” is almost entirely variations on one highly complex counterpointed rhythmic figure. The verse is one chord. The bridge is another chord, up a major fourth. There are no other chords. Despite the obvious downbeats, the transitions between sections are impossible to predict by counting bars or beats; you simply have to remember where James cues the band. On this track, he cues the band with a shriek that sounds like he is falling out of an airplane.
Note: For Advent, 25 secular essays about 25 songs, one per day from Dec. 1 through Dec. 25. Each essay is exactly 200 words long.
No comments:
Post a Comment