Within 6 days of sending through "Ordinary Man", I had written and recorded my last contribution for the album (apart from adding to Rob's one to come). I was indeed enjoying quite a prolific couple of weeks. Sometimes, it just happens like that - other times you can go for months - in fact, until "Antipodes", I had been idle for some 8 or 9 years, so one is definately re-energised by having a goal to work towards.
"Jazzman" came about by just idly sitting at the keyboard and mucking about with the various drum sounds. I came across a drum kit sound called "brush kit" and played a few of the different jazz sounding drum and cymbal notes. That was it. Never having written a complete jazz number, I decided to give it a go.
I recorded a few simple bars of drums and added a double bass sound, and I was hooked. I started from scratch again with the piano. Wasn't too long before the entire "tune" was written and recorded on just the piano track. I added the complete drums and double bass which was enough of a basis for me to start writing the lyrics.
The first line of the song "I've always wanted to be a jazzman" is not necessarily true, although I do have a great admiration and sneaky desire to possess the skills of improvisation that comes with this particular blend of music. Once the first line was written, the rest came easy. I just imagined a laid back sax player, going to, playing at, and going home from a jazz gig in some little club somewhere - hopefully, I have managed to convey the atmosphere that such a place conjours up.
I added a sax sound on the two intro verses and originally, I left two instrumental verses in the middle for Rob to do his thing with some jazz guitar. I then recorded the vocal track and sent a demo through to Rob on 26th January. He was quite surprised that, yet again, I had deviated from our original plan, but I think he was quite pleased to have a different type of song to work on.
He said it was a shame that his saxaphone playing friend (brilliant by Rob's reckoning) was not available to play on this one, but I must confess, although it would have sounded 1000% better than my effort, it would have for the first time involved someone else on the album - so I am glad of his unavailability really. I wanted this to be our project for the first album, and I think Rob did too to be honest.
A couple of days later, Rob suggested some sax fills and a piano solo for the second instrumental verse, leaving him with some guitar fills and the first inst. verse all to himself. Good idea, it certainly gave the song a better balance and I was quite proud of the jazz solo I managed to get done.
On 5th February, Rob sent through the completed track. His guitar was excellent - very BB King. The thing was, he had also put on some very good backing vocals, but after a few listens, we decided to ditch those as it made the song more 60's soul than 40's jazz. Anyhow the song was done, but during it's making, one of the greatest jazz saxophonists, Humphrey Littleton, died. Spooky.
Here is a sample of the finished product
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This is the second to last song of Paul's songs I worked on, but it's such a cool song I thought we had to have it up higher in the track listing!
ReplyDeleteBecause I play regulary with a sax player, it took me a few listens to get used to the keyboard sax, but once I did, I slipped right into the groove!
This was the song my dad complimented the most actually, he really liked this one, and so do I.
Paul obviously has a knack for a good lyric, and this one tells a cool story, my wife Carol really digs it too. I wanted an up front guitar in it, as those jazz blues type players always had that clean sound right up there in the mix. I might of overdone it a tad, and had to back the guitar off a little as Paul correctly pointed out.
We brought up the vocal a bit and Bob's your uncle! (I mean nephew). Great track! I can picture those dudes in the bar playing this tune! and having a beer or two!