Funk is ending up like the Blues

[Whousedtoplay]

Oh, almost forgot! Bare with me.
Next Friday, I'm playing a gig where a nearly-40-year dream will finally come true... because we're gonna play this epic EW&F song... which I've never played live! This song is just pure joy to me.

What a BEAUTY!
Make sure your band follows all those syncopated tutti, fills, notes' lenghts, dynamics, etc...
To just play is not the same as to acquire that "FEEL" of the Grand-eness of Earth Wind and Fire.
Do you have a horn section?

 

[Whousedtoplay]

Vulfpeck is the future of Funk. Young Black kids are totally into Hip Hop, frankly most White kids are into Hip Hop too. Even country acts are being heavily influenced by Rap these days. Funk is being produced by music school “nerds” like Vulfpeck (I love them, but they do come off as music department nerds.) Of course, musicianship is very healthy in the Black Church, Black Church bassists can certainly get funky, but Gospel is not Funk, funk is just one of many flavors comprising current Urban Gospel. I am not complaining, I was blessed to have grown up during the heyday of Funk, and just like the Big Band and Jump Blues that my parents grew up listening to gave way to R&B, Funk was not going last forever. It is just a sign of my aging that I am seeing what happened to my parent’s music, happen to my music.

Now, the Bass Intro is very attractive but...
1. Some fills (repetitious 16th triplets) sound more like EXERCISES!
2. Overwhelming desire to fill ALL THE SPACES with "sterile and clearly-defined" short notes, avoiding funk's "BREATHING", funk's rhythmic articulation, etc..., but...

Joe Dart is an excellent bass player.
I'm very happy to know that we still have amazing BASS PLAYERS in pop music!

 

[Groove Doctor]

Another pretty cool and funky local band.

Awesome. Thanks!!!!

 

[Kmonk]

Funk is no longer the major style of music enjoyed by the community that created it. The same thing happened to the Bues two generations ago.

Blues is still enjoyed by the community who created it. In fact, there are a lot of new blues players too.

 

[rashrader]

I feel that funk was absorbed into music on a fundamental level.... It’s a feel these days, not a genre. Anything can be funky. Does that rudimentary funk genre still exist? Definitely. But, like rudimentary Heavy Metal, which was taken up and mutated by countless new genres, it’s been challenged by a new era where you can get your funk in multiple places. Stuff changes. Accept it and move on.

 

[ElMon]

Hmm. Didn't know the original genres slowly killed you from the inside.

One of them satisfies and the other is just a trendy snack.

 

[ElMon]

Blues is still enjoyed by the community who created it. In fact, there are a lot of new blues players too.

It’s still, to his point, becoming more and more a niche genre. I had a music discussion with a hip-hop focused black co-worker the other day, who is helping ME scope out some of the current hip-hop guys worth listening, and he had never heard of:

Charles Mingus
Albert or Freddie King
John Lee Hooker

I played some stuff on my phone amd got ‘that’s my dad’s stuff’.

 

[ElMon]

Blues is still enjoyed by the community who created it. In fact, there are a lot of new blues players too.

Really liking Gary Clark Jr by the way and love when a throwback act (who also does his own thing) becomes ‘the thing’.

Wonder how much interest his career garners for the masters of the genre who came before.

 

[retslock]

I feel that funk was absorbed into music on a fundamental level.... It’s a feel these days, not a genre. Anything can be funky. Does that rudimentary funk genre still exist? Definitely. But, like rudimentary Heavy Metal, which was taken up and mutated by countless new genres, it’s been challenged by a new era where you can your funk in multiple places. Stuff changes. Accept it and move on.

Even though I use the term as a style descriptor myself for convenience, I always believed that funk is an attitude not a style. You can make anything funky. It’s all in the delivery.

 

[rashrader]

Even though I use the term as a style descriptor myself for convenience, I always believed that funk is an attitude not a style. You can make anything funky. It’s all in the delivery.

Exactly. Music evolves. Why do people resist change? It is really quite natural.

 

[BassUrges]

Exactly. Music evolves. Why do people resist change? It is really quite natural.

Resisting change is ALSO natural. People were telling kids to get off their lawn thousands of years before the lawn was invented.

That said, my son the guitarist is completely focused on classical and, secondarily on jazz. He considers rock to promote an immoral lifestyle and hip hop to be noise.

He’s great at the classical stuff but grooves like Steve Martin in “The Jerk.” We’re working on it.

 

[murphy]

Dang, Joe Dart is irresistible! That gooey tone and groove are perfect!

 

[Stranger Danger]

Vulfpeck is the future of Funk. Young Black kids are totally into Hip Hop, frankly most White kids are into Hip Hop too. Even country acts are being heavily influenced by Rap these days. Funk is being produced by music school “nerds” like Vulfpeck (I love them, but they do come off as music department nerds.) Of course, musicianship is very healthy in the Black Church, Black Church bassists can certainly get funky, but Gospel is not Funk, funk is just one of many flavors comprising current Urban Gospel. I am not complaining, I was blessed to have grown up during the heyday of Funk, and just like the Big Band and Jump Blues that my parents grew up listening to gave way to R&B, Funk was not going last forever. It is just a sign of my aging that I am seeing what happened to my parent’s music, happen to my music.

The hippie Jam bands that I love also play a lot of funk music. Phish and Widespread Panic are my favorites but there's younger bands coming up doing it too. Spafford crushes. So does Lettuce.

 

[Stranger Danger]

Really liking Gary Clark Jr by the way and love when a throwback act (who also does his own thing) becomes ‘the thing’.

Wonder how much interest his career garners for the masters of the genre who came before.

I saw Gary and his band in a little bar in San Antonio with about 30 people in it. They were playing Curtis Mayfield and he was playing a 12 string and making it sound like a Stratocaster. Blew my mind

 

[Diamond_Dave]

Joe Dart is insanely talented and clearly is a master of his instrument. I’m in no place to critique—but if I were, I’d tell him to BREATHE, man! Phrasing, spacing, anticipation, rise, climax, fall...great guitar players can shred, but the transcendent ones know phrasing. That’s what touches the soul.

 

[Medicine Man]

Hey, I'm just happy all these guys are generating interest in funky music and real instruments for a younger generation so they aren't limited to kick-clap hip hop beats and dubstep bass wobbles spit out with protools by tools.

 

[Stranger Danger]

Joe Dart is insanely talented and clearly is a master of his instrument. I’m in no place to critique—but if I were, I’d tell him to BREATHE, man! Phrasing, spacing, anticipation, rise, climax, fall...great guitar players can shred, but the transcendent ones know phrasing. That’s what touches the soul.

He's only 27.

 

[petrus61]

The hippie Jam bands that I love also play a lot of funk music. Phish and Widespread Panic are my favorites but there's younger bands coming up doing it too. Spafford crushes. So does Lettuce.

I’d go so far to say Jam bands were the ones carrying the funk torch for many years through the late 90’s and into the 00’s. Umphree’s, Disco Biscuits, Derek Trucks, Moe, and of course Phish all used heavy funk elements in some very tasteful ways. It’s a shame Robert Randolph isn’t as big a presence as he was at the time. The Family Band seemed poised to bring funk into a new era for a while there, then after two albums all but disappeared.

 

[Stranger Danger]

I’d go so far to say Jam bands were the ones carrying the funk torch for many years through the late 90’s and into the 00’s. Umphree’s, Disco Biscuits, Derek Trucks, Moe, and of course Phish all used heavy funk elements in some very tasteful ways. It’s a shame Robert Randolph isn’t as big a presence as he was at the time. The Family Band seemed poised to bring funk into a new era for a while there, then after two albums all but disappeared.

What I love about Panic and Phish and really most of the "jam bands" is that they are genre-less. If it's good then it's good. And FUNK is GOOD

 

[Stranger Danger]

And Jesus Coomes is a guy that probably doesn't get talked about enough around here.