DOWNLOAD THE MIXTAPE HERE!!

With a titanic effort spanning three continents, and with participants from Stockholm to Cape Town, the Paper Cha$erz family is ready to release their first mixtape, created completely on Indaba Music. If descriptions were comprised of one word, the word for this mixtape would be diversity. Not only is the music encompassed in this album diverse, but, the collaborators and the subject matter is diverse. Spearheaded by the underground Philadelphia producer St. Paul and Canadian MC Kava-1, the mixtape has finally come to fruition after months of planning and recording. One of the standout, and rather surprising, qualities of the mixtape is the subject matter. Though the mixtape is titled Paper Cha$erz (Vol. 1), many of the songs focus on social issues, either personal or in story form, which circumvent the need to tout all the usual mainstream showings of bling, rims, iced grillz, and paper. Let's face it, one of the things that made Illmatic such a dominant hip-hop force was, while Nas' wordsmithing was impeccable, its continued, track after track, social commentary and imagery; and it is refreshing to see that this mixtape often follows in the Illmatic tradition. Of course, that's not to say that the whole mixtape is socially conscious or personal. Tracks like "My Grind On", "Paperchasin Anthem", and "FreshChick" show the more commercial side of the tape. 

There are several standout tracks on the mixtape. The Paper Cha$erz family hits hard from the first track on the mixtape. "It Don't Matter" featuring MCs Sunny Tuff and Gangalee, is a bold condemnation of the commercial music industry, and glorifies the underground scene. The beat is catchy and well produced, which adds to the overall vibe of the track. Its hook claims, "You could be the best lyricist and don't prosper/ or you can be the worst MC and make it to the top/  It don't matter, it don't matter", and later, Gangalee notes, "...just 'cause you're dope on the block/ don't mean the A&R's gonna feel the same." With the emergence of "MCs" like Soulja Boy and Gucci Mane, it's easy to see where this commentary is coming from. Anyone who has been true to the hip-hop tradition from the first cypher knows that unfortunately, sometimes second rate rapping is more marketable. 

Another standout track is "Just 17". MC Kava-1, one of the mixtape's organizers, paints a great picture of a down-on-his-luck 17 year old, which weaves together a story of loss, maturity, coming of age, and the trappings of poverty into some pretty clever rapping. It's refreshing to hear more image and story driven rapping, especially a story that continues from the beginning of the song and follows through to the end. Kava-1's flow is dead on, and it's easy to hear some of his more old school and underground influences. There's also a lot of texture to notice in the beat: subtle vinyl noise, effective chops, and some nicely chosen samples.  

In a total 360, the track "My Grind On", is a banging, hard hitting, dirty south beat. MC ALLINGATOR focuses on more commercial ready material: the hustle and the need to be on your grind. This is more of a tribute to the Paper Cha$er name than the other tracks and is more club ready than the other tracks. In terms of subject matter, ALLINGATOR effectively provides one of the nicely placed and refreshing breaks from the heavier fare of the Paper Cha$erz mixtape. One of those heavier tracks is "Gotta Be More" by MC Jah I Witness. Jah chooses to create three portraits with his words. The first is a boy looking for a way out of the ghetto, either through education or through something else. The second scene is a woman whose man is in prison, and is looking for something to fill the void. Lastly, and perhaps the hardest hitting, is the portrait of the crack fiend who has been shunned by the world, falling deeper and deeper into a hole; one with "quick highs and long lows". All of these images are codified by a fitting chorus, a message that there's "Gotta Be More" than their status quo. Jah's more melodic, Drake like approach to his flow, is very appropriate and does the subject matter justice.   

St. Paul and Kava-1 have managed to pull together a good crew of artists, with a promise to release more in the future. "This is just the beginning!", says St. Paul. There's already another indaba session up for volume 2.

November 17 sees the debut release by Them Crooked Vultures, the new rock supergroup project from Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age, Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters (and, of course, Nirvana previously), and Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Lead single "New Fang" is a Queens-style mud pit (meant to refer to Homme's other band there, not the NYC borough, although that too, I suppose) which I must confess just makes me think of that riff from Johnny Winter and Rick Derringer's hilarious "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo."

Funny thing about the word "supergroup," though -- it seems to imply a certain longevity, mostly because it feels a little silly to still use the term decades hence if the band hasn't really gone anywhere (consider The Firm, or, uh, The Firm). Here, then, are some other current projects to which you can apply the term for at least the next couple months without feeling like an idiot.

Blak Roc

God-awful name here, but this would be former Roc-A-Fella mogul Dame Dash squishing his new favorite rock duo The Black Keys up against rappers including Ludacris, Wu-Tang's RZA, and most amusingly, Jim Jones of Dipset.

Monsters Of Folk

Earlier this year, Rolling Stone music biz correspondent Steve Knopper released Appetite For Self-Destruction, a birds-eye view book documenting the implosion of the record industry since its high point in the late 90's. That story is something I've been following for years myself, bit by bit and blog by blog -- kind of hard to miss if you're a musician, right?

I'll nix the urge to get into a sermon on the same here -- Knopper gives it a full 320 pages, so you can go read his take if you're in the mood -- and instead just point out the latest development: has book has been optioned by HBO for a new series helmed by the producers behind The Wire, the universally beloved drama about the gritty underbelly of Baltimore which wrapped up in 2008.

Now, it's hard to imagine this project seeing the light of day unless it's recast as fiction -- lawsuits from the major players would abound, I'd think, if they were to see their stories told out of their control on national television. I've had a very hard time getting into Mad Men despite its general and current hipness, in large part because it focuses on the advertising agencies of the 60's, a world that's totally foreign to me. But the prospect of watching banal party scenes featuring Tommy Mottola and Suge Knight is oddly intriguing, so I think at the very least this has the potential to engage the musicians who grew up when there was still enough of a record industry to write about, and even -- depending on how far they stray from Knopper's vision -- teach us a few things along the way.

In the meantime, I recommend Glee.

by Seth

So, there you are…standing on the bottom floor of a building with two options: should I take the stairs or an elevator?  Most people (including me) would probably wait and take the elevator, even though taking a quick walk up the stairs would be great way to get some quick exercise.  Culturally, the stairs just aren’t all that appealing anymore – we’ve decided that the automatic, effortless option is the way to go.  It’s time to change the way society views activities; there has to be a way to get society more active in an appealing way!  By using something called  “task unification”, you can assign a new fun activity to an ordinary task.

Overnight, a team of workers in Stockholm, Sweden transformed an ordinary subway staircase into a giant functioning piano keyboard! Within a short time, commuters in Stockholm began to take the musical stairs over the escalator. Why is this? Choice Architecture is a way in which decisions are influenced based on how the choices are presented, by presenting the stairs in a fun exciting way people decided to walk rather then lazily ride.  It is really very simple to decide to take the easy way out, so we need to condition our minds into associating fun with a task we don’t necessary enjoy. But is a giant piano the only way to get people more active or are there other ways? How about a set of stairs that lights up as you walk, or steps that give your motivational words as you climb? This mode of thinking needs to be implemented to multiple facets of life and fast.  But the question today still remains, would you choose to take the stairs over the ease of and escalator?  I’d prefer making music!

 by Rick

It is easy for a jazz pianist to become bottled up in a piano-centric world, completely oblivious to the other instruments that exist. This is normal. Pianists tend to see their instrument as the end all be all of instruments; the top of the mound, the king of the hill, the ace in the deck. Throughout history, keyboard instruments have been the ones used to develop theory, develop voice leading, and write symphonies! Solo piano is one of the oldest "complete" genres of jazz, dating back to the inception in New Orleans. In fact, some, like myself, would argue that the language of jazz developed in great part due to the efforts of pianists James P. Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton, Willie "the Lion" Smith, Teddy Wilson, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, and Nat Cole (surely, the list goes on). As a budding young pianist, I had a piano-centric view of the universe; ignorant and unable to acknowledge anyone who wasn't a descendant of Oscar Peterson, my personal hero. I would listen to solo piano, piano duos, and, of course, piano trios. Any combo larger than three people was too large for me. Yes, the piano is great, and, yes, the piano has played a very significant role in sculpting the form of modern music, but let us remember hubris is the deadly Greek flaw.

Each instrument has a unique sound and mechanism. The combination of these two things, not surprisingly, guide the player in a certain natural direction. For example, jazz professors (and seasoned jazz veterans in general) make a huge ruckus about needing to leave space in a solo. A piano player, who does not need to breathe to play his instrument, can begin to play gratuitous lines, while a horn player will have to leave natural space to breathe (barring circular breathing!). Thus, looking outside the scope of your own instrument is important. Take J. J. Johnson for example. As an up and coming trombonist in the world of bebop, he was faced with a unique dilemma. Bebop was a developing language all about flash and trying to out play the other player, and the trombone was an awkward instrument to play fast and complicated bebop lines on. Still, wanting to sound like Charlie Parker, who was playing an instrument made for fast playing, he took that inspiration and transformed the instrument completely.

I soon realized this importance, and after escaping from the piano bubble I built for myself, came to find inspiration in many different instrumentalists and a few singers. One instrument I am very influenced by is the guitar. While the guitar is a chordal instrument like the piano, it is much less limited, in an expressive sense. You can bend, slide, ghost notes, and use vibrato in ways impossible on the piano. I'm always disappointed when I try to use vibrato on the piano and it doesn't come out, but I hope that the way I approach it does something to my overall sound. One guitarist I listen to for this expressive way of playing is Kurt Rosenwinkel, who comes up with the most interesting clusters and lines. He uses the guitar more as an extension of his voice, and on some recordings you can hear him singing along quite loudly (on his recording of "If I Should Lose You", he even sings the words at one point in the background). Another favorite is Allan Holdsworth, whose technique is simply impeccable, but he does not sacrifice musicality for gratuity (as I write this I'm listening to "Non Brewed Condiment", which is a difficult but gorgeous melody). I also listen to lots of trumpet players. Of course, I include Miles on the list. He's one of the few cats who can take one note played in quarter notes and use it to define the tone of his solo, the groove, and the time (for a classic example, listen to the first three notes of his solo on "Freddie Freeloader"). I'm always trying to emulate the way he plays the blues with that simplicity and dark tone. Then there's Clifford Brown, the trumpet player's Art Tatum. Out of all the great qualities possessed by Clifford, the one I find most inspiration in is his clarity. Clifford's first big gig, like so many of the great trumpet players, was with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and playing with such a rhythmic powerhouse, along with innate talent, surely had something to do with his rhythmic prowess. I'll close out this list with someone who is often taken for granted by the general public, Frank Sinatra. In my opinion, if you want to learn how to swing and lay back, listen to Sinatra religiously. He has recorded some of the most in the pocket melodies in the history of the language.

To be sure, there are many, many more to name, but, I would love to hear back from any of you guys out there in Indaba land with musical influences you take from outside your instrument or comfort zone- please feel free to comment below.

by Vijith

I'm a big fan of jazz pianist Chick Corea and have even occasionally ventured as far as trying to play some of his tunes myself, usually with fairly embarrassing results, so I'm a little stunned by this performance by Fabio Valdemarin. The song, "Got A Match?", might be the most excessive track on the debut record by the Elektric Band fusion quartet Corea introduced in 1986, filled every step of the way with blazing runs from instrument leaders like bassist John Patitucci and drummer Dave Weckl. That Valdemarin can nail a remarkable rendition of such a difficult song on four different instruments is at once a vote of confidence in the overdubbed one-man band projects made possible by home studios and also a reminder that I really oughta turn off this bloody computer and go practice.

Look, I'm not going to lie.  I went to the gym the other day, picked up something way too heavy for me and ripped all the muscles in my hand.  Every word, every letter, I type here causes a mini-seizure in my fingers.  I had something planned just for this occasion, though.  I knew someday that I would screw up my hands so I prepared a pose just in case that happened.  And now that it has enjoy the blissfully wordless, "My Favorite Mash-Ups."

--

I adore mash-ups.  They're fun to make, they're fun to listen to and, bonus, they make you think of each song used in a whole new way.  Any music fan can see their appeal so I won't bother analyzing them.  Instead, enjoy my three favorites and, please, if you have a few of your own, post them in the comments. 

3. A Stroke of Genie-u

2. Girl Talk - Feed the Animals (10)

1. And the best I've heard in a long time...2008

by Vijith

I'm having to start from scratch with a lot of workflow issues after jumping ship from Digital Performer to Logic, and during a project I worked on last week, I was forced to re-learn an old trick that's definitely worth passing along here.

In part because I use a lot of MIDI, I generally try to adhere to a click track unless there's an artistic reason to drift -- rubato, and even rushing, have their uses, but I've always felt strongly that DAW-based composition gets much easier when you can visually see and edit the relationships between beats, bars, and whatever musical content you've input, and -- not insignificant, this part -- snap your musical phrases around in musically useful increments. Trying to slide a keyboard riff back by one bar comes much more naturally than trying to move it back by 191,387 samples, and having to calculate the latter every time you want to move something around is, in my opinion, one of the quickest ways to kill a productivity buzz.

Where I depart from a lot of people, I think, is that I think this same reasoning also extends from matters of composition and arrangement and into production. Delays and modulation effects, in particular, can be incredibly effective when anchored to the tempo of the piece, and even compressors can be made to pump in and out in musically useful ways (though you'll rarely see any sort of beat-oriented controls on those plugins). This means that I can quickly turn quite surly when I have to calculate millisecond values in order to get a basic quarter-note delay or swirl a flanger around symmetrically on every bar -- again, it always feels like I'm screeching to a standstill to address some stupid procedural hangup (not unlike doing excessive paperwork, actually).

Most people, particularly when focused exclusively on mixing, don't seem to worry about this -- in fact, I'd wager that an overwhelming majority of the Pro Tools session documents in the world have the metronome set to the default 120 BPM no matter what they actually contain. I've heard arguments that unpredictable tempo asymmetries can make the effects more interesting, and also that locking things in too tightly makes it easier to forget that such details are usually just meant to be frosting. Both are valid points, but I'm not convinced, because if you want the asymmetry, you can always flip your plugin back into millisecond mode. Properly placed beat and bar reference points give you a very powerful new way of addressing your time-oriented production effects, but there's nothing forcing you to use it.

The obvious problem here: playing to a metronome is hard! And even assuming that I've already won you over here, if any of the material is tracked without you around to play resident click stickler, chances are this line of reasoning will be dispensed with, and the project tempo will be set to that dreaded 120.00 when you see it next.

There's a really elegant solution to this with most major DAW platforms, though. No, not yelling at your drummer, although there's often a reason for that too, in which case, have at it, Cowboy.

Rather, you can retroactively move the beat and bar lines of the metronome's "grid" around to match up the musical content in the audio recordings. Thus, it's not actually a grid at all in the end, instead pulsing subtly over the course of the session to match up with the musician's natural pacing. Or even wildly, for that matter -- who cares? I just want to beat-sync my plugins, remember, so if the wildly fluctuating tempos (rubato, incompetent, whatever) are considered acceptable at this point, my cognitive flow has been restored and we can move on.

This is not beat slicing or quantization or Live Warping or time stretching or any number of other terms that might have just jumped to mind. Most of those processes are ways of conforming deviating performances to a rigid tempo grid. Here, we're conforming the grid to the performance, and through it all, the audio is absolutely untouched (for better or worse).

In order to set up your sequence for this, you'll have to do a bit of prep (which I must sheepishly admit might feel a bit like doing paperwork) but for me the payoff comes in never having to stop making music to switch to a calculator.

Platform-specific:
Logic
Digital Performer
Pro Tools
Cubase

This posting is taken from Greg Osby's Artist in Residence program on Indaba. 

Somewhere along the way, I haven't determined exactly when, it became acceptable for some musicians to think showing up for live (Jazz) performances wearing the same clothes that they wear anywhere else is the thing to do. These days it isn't that uncommon that a patron of the music, with hard-earned cash in hand, will venture out for an evening with hopes of enjoying some high art but instead will be offered a gig where some of the cats who perform will actually show up and get on stage with prominent holes and stains in/on their jeans, wrinkled and tattered t-shirts, dirty sneakers, visible underwear, greasy, unwashed hair (or bodies), dirty fingernails, or worse.... What the hell happened? When did it become acceptable for performers to look like they don't give a s--t? A quick look at any vintage photograph featuring the champions of the music reveals how much detail went into how they looked as well as how they sounded. Neither was any accident. (For that matter, look at the early photos of the Beatles....SUITS.) So why must the prestigious and noble face of the music be tarnished now with this mass nose thumbing at one of the more important aspects of performance etiquette? Irons are cheap and there's a dry cleaners on every other corner.

Now, don't get me wrong, in my private life, I'm just as casual and relaxed in my dress as anyone else. Sometimes I would even classify my look at home as "homeless chic". But once I step outside my house and venture into the world where simple minded people sometimes size you up immediately before you even have a chance to speak... well, let me just offer this to any of you who happen NOT to be a Black man who is always followed and eyed suspiciously whenever he decides to peruse the items in any retail establishment..if this was a constant part of your life that went back as far as you could remember, then you would understand why it is imperative to appear in public at all times as if you mean business. I certainly don't want to be mistaken for a thug, degenerate or anyone else who doesn't want to be taken seriously or respected. (Side note: Each and every time that I travel with casual wear , I am detained and searched thoroughly at airport security and customs. EVERY time.This is obvious character profiling, of course, but is definitely avoidable if my garb and external profile don't resemble that of a hellraiser.)

But where musical performances are concerned, jeans, baseball caps, sneakers and t-shirts and other extreme casual wear just doesn't cut it for me in terms of stage apparel. Not in my band, it doesn't. The exception, of course, would be some of the summer outdoor music festivals where we're often found performing in sweltering heat, or situations where we've had to rush to the bandstand directly form the airport after a day of hectic travel and near-missed flights. Sometimes there is absolutely no time that will allow for the band to "get it together" and one must perform "as is". But dressing as if you just woke up from falling asleep with your clothes on should not be an acceptable norm. I'm constantly surprised to find the number of Jazz musicians who feel that it's no big deal and argue that they're merely "dressing for comfort". I doubt very seriously that any member of any philharmonic orchestra would agree, or think for one minute that their job would be secure if they didn't appear for work dressed appropriately.

Once in or around 1983 or '84, during a break on a gig at a location that I can't immediately remember, Dizzy Gillespie, complimented me on the sharpness of my suit and relayed to me some stories about how meticulous some of the musicians had been about their "vines" (Jazzspeak for suits - hanging on your body like vines). He told me that a hip suit (and hat) were essential "the look" and that they would have never even considered performing in anything less. He concluded his story with the same phrase that I've heard said countless times when referring to the audience: "They SEE you before they HEAR you". I agree wholeheartedly with this and have to confess that I base my total enjoyment of any given performance on a multitude of factors - appearance and stage presence being two of them. 

I would further contend that this slacker mode of dress has contributed to the devaluation of the music in terms of visual presentation and a steadily increasing lack of respect for an art form whose very participants sometimes don't appear to have much respect for anything other than subjecting their audiences to 10 chorus length solos and songs that last 30 minutes each - AND looking like derelicts while doing it! 

In my own experience, I would have to admit that not only do I feel better about my presentation when I'm secure that everything is in place both with the music as well as with the business, but I also notice all too well how different I am treated and respected when I am dressed like a "grown-ass-man". In music, as well as in every other aspect of life, respect for oneself and the rich lineage that we've inherited deserves ample consideration and attention to every facet of the art form - not just being a "bad ass" on your instrument. So to those to whom this would apply: Clean up your act!

And for those of you who are members of Facebook, here's a link to trumpeter Sean Jones' online discussion that deals with the very same subject. 

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=7762506156&topic=12383

Perhaps it's time for musicians to, along with the refinement of their craft, begin to reinvestigate the value and immediate benefits (WINK!) of being "clean" and "sharp as a tack" once again. I know, quite personally, a number of people who would support the music with a bit more enthusiasm if the musicians themselves didn't appear so aloof and disheveled. It's not so much to ask.

Thanks,

GO

On June 24^th, 2009 PBS premiered The Music Instinct Science and Song, an innovative documentary about the power of sound and music. Indaba Music was able to offer its community the opportunity to participate directly in this groundbreaking program, through two consecutive contests.  These contests challenged the community to produce powerful pieces of music from everyday sounds and also to reimagine a theme for the show.

Now's your chance to hear what the winners came up with. The Top Five submissions for each contest were recently released as part of The Music Instinct: Science and Song album

Download the album through PBS or emusic and check out what they came up with!

CONGRATS TO THE WINNERS!

The Music Instinct Science and Song Part I:

David Minnick - Ignition

Andrew Westphal - Groovolution

Randy Colby - PBS Science & Song (RC Breaks Mix)

United Republic - Passin Windows

Royal Beatsmyth - Ambassador Lassiter's Phantasmic Antiquarium

 The Music Instinct Science and Song Part II:

Sujan E. Bin Wadud - Instinct Tells Me

David Minnick - Small Enough

Bobak Salehi - Storm - Instrumental - Lama Mix

Dana "MiztaKlean"Essex - Miztaklean's Music Instinct Theme

Justin Nations (Jus Bus) - Music Instinct Theme