Funk is ending up like the Blues

[Rudyboy98]

Funk has definitely evolved. I enjoy my “share” of funk, because I not only see it as just a style of music..but in some ways- a technique that can be developed into a player’s style of music. Purists may see or say I am wrong. But it’s part of the same thing I suppose.

 

[frankie5string]

I stumbled upon a Youtube channel for Música Brasileira with João Marcello Bôscoli, and realized how sloppy North American modern funk and fusion usually is.

Those musicians on that show are not flashy but are incredibly tight playing virtually everything thrown at them, and they often have the stank or funk of "on the one" down to a science. Then check out the ridiculously good glue between the kick drum and the bass players on those videos.

Check it out.

 

[TwentyHz]

'Only read the first couple of pages, so ff this has been said or refuted, please excuse or ignore.

It really bugs me when people start labeling things like OP has done. "It was 'our' music and 'they' stole it from us" is coming off as very racist in my eyes. IMO, 'they' are honoring the traditions of 'us'. It's good music and 'they' want to play it, maybe advance it in their own way. Did 'they' say 'us' couldn't play it any more? Is it not cool to do now that 'they' are doing it?

I've never cared for the process of making sure to announce that he/she is the first XXX to do/be something - to me it just delays the ability to stop thinking that people are different just because we look different. OP is claiming the loss of something and I just don't know how that can be. "He's playing so now I can't?" Wow.

I don't pretend to know what it's like to be 'us' - I'm sure that the world still has along way to go get to a point where it truly doesn't matter what one looks like. But these kind of statements just don't help anything and further any division that still exists between and 'us' and 'them'

Ouch. Nope. Read again. Not at all what OP said.

 

[FilterFunk]

'Only read the first couple of pages, so ff this has been said or refuted, please excuse or ignore.

It really bugs me when people start labeling things like OP has done. "It was 'our' music and 'they' stole it from us" is coming off as very racist in my eyes. IMO, 'they' are honoring the traditions of 'us'. It's good music and 'they' want to play it, maybe advance it in their own way. Did 'they' say 'us' couldn't play it any more? Is it not cool to do now that 'they' are doing it?

I've never cared for the process of making sure to announce that he/she is the first XXX to do/be something - to me it just delays the ability to stop thinking that people are different just because we look different. OP is claiming the loss of something and I just don't know how that can be. "He's playing so now I can't?" Wow.

I don't pretend to know what it's like to be 'us' - I'm sure that the world still has along way to go get to a point where it truly doesn't matter what one looks like. But these kind of statements just don't help anything and further any division that still exists between and 'us' and 'them'

I gleaned none of this from the OP.

 

[mrcbass]

I gleaned none of this from the OP.

I reread and perhaps you guys are right. I'll remove my post. Thanks.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

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.

Styles come and go, but music is still always music. Very little of “Western
Music” is truly original. It just keeps getting regurgitated and reformulated, then passed down through the generations that follow. It’s the way it is.

We had “Hip Hop” back in the 50’s and early 60s. It was called beat music, performed by (what else?) Beatnics. Pretty much was music for the tone deaf, of which a lot more of us are tone deaf than not, which does a great job of explaining it’s popularity.

Today, with Computerized synths, algorhytmns for drums, and cut and paste studio techniques, to back up prose of questionable social value, delivered in varying degrees of intensity.

People, we have a winner.

 

[ElMon]

This largely true...because a lot of busy players tend to lose sight of the fact that they're supposed to be playing with others.

I know killer rhythm guitarists who wish they could solo, not realizing what they bring to the table is funk gold. And bassists who can't understand why that well placed arpeggio killed the groove.

I learned the power of hypnosis-by-repetition on ‘The Big Payback’. When I cut out the fills, amazing, magical things happened on the dance floor, and to my datebook.

 

[Scottgun]

 

[Silky Johnson]

I really want to like Vulfpeck. It's undoubtedly skillful, but to me it comes across as quantized, sterilized, Berklee Funk 101. There's something missing...

Dead right

 

[maplenecked]

Vulfpeck is smooth jazz for millennials

 

[Steve59]

I like these guys.


They remind of these guys;

 

[Dr. Cheese]

There has been a greater response to this thread than any I have ever started. I also could not answer too many this morning because I am a church musician, and I was playing at church.

I just want to set a few things straight, I do not dislike Vulfpeck, but they do look like the music school nerds they are. As someone who grew up watching EWF, Slave, Pleasure, War, AWB, Parliament, etc., they cannot match those bands in charisma or stage presence. The only one with any charisma is Joe Dart. The rest work the geek angle, and they high caliber enough musicians that they can poke fun at themselves and still sound great.

I miss Funk, but I do not regret it’s passing. Music changes and new generations have to find their own voice. Funk will never entirely die because it is now part of the vocabulary of competent musicians who will use it as needed.

 

[frankie5string]

I'm pretty sure "Beat Music" was what came from the description of British musicians emulating American Rock and Roll and R & B, some of which was also referred to as "Race Music" back then. Calling it "Beat Music" was less offensive and more radio-friendly.

Beat Music was generally well crafted, and a tip of the hat to Rock n' Roll and R & B.

It had nothing to do with Beatniks, initially.
After a time Beatniks came about as people began experimenting with drugs and pseudo-intellectualism. Then it expanded to represent the downtrodden and hard-done-by, usually white middle class malaise, didn't it?

We had “Hip Hop” back in the 50’s and early 60s. It was called beat music, performed by (what else?) Beatnics. Pretty much was music for the tone deaf, of which a lot more of us are tone deaf than not, which does a great job of explaining it’s popularity.

 

[Funk is]

Funk is a casualty of sophistication. As we progress as a culture ever further from the natural world and grow to depend on adulterated and digitalized inputs of all kinds we loose our ability to precieve the natural elements and subtle energies abundant in rhythmic expression. Even our natural day is a rhythmic expression, which we are distracted from in every conceivable way. This is not very funky.

it is no longer ‘enough’ to play a groove in the same way it isn’t enough to just be. yet when you hear legitimate live funk music in your ear you loose your political sensibilities and revert temporarily back to human. But musicians today are either held to contracts or over worked at other jobs and restricted from coming together to channel funk. I hope the little girl in the vid find a drummer some day, and learns how to be funk music.

Funk is closer to the primitive than it is to our present culture, same with blues our jazz in the context of music being alive and full of energy- as it is played. Funk is the result of the ‘jazz approach’, which is not genre focused. We see in the 70’s elements of funk in every genre from country to rock. Funk is natural, not commercial even though it was paraded around. We can be entertained by anything- entertainment is not the measurement for fulfillment. But in our consumer society we confuse entertainment and soul music; funk, jazz, blues, klezmer, or any indigenous music.

What we hear today is commercial music; pop music. It is judged by its commercial appeal, not it’s jazz. It’s funny, a lot of musicians will not consider miles Davis’ late 60’s-early 80’s music but will insist they can play funk. In fact, we almost always reject music which strays from the popular format-funk is not popular. From a critical perspective one could say we have no appreciation for music, we simply use it to pretend we do.

 

[DrayMiles]

No, its LATIN music.

Oh.. well, in the words of Steve Martin...

Well... Excuse me!

 

[LBS-bass]

I really want to like Vulfpeck. It's undoubtedly skillful, but to me it comes across as quantized, sterilized, Berklee Funk 101. There's something missing...

As I've said before, this and other bands like it are definitely the product of academic jazz programs. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's definitely the next generation having studied what the founders of the genre lived instead. When something is studied and regurgitated, it takes on a different sheen. Not good or bad, per se, but a studied form will never be the same as an organically created one. There's room for all of it; as new forms come about, those will become studied and polished as well. It's just how we human beings do things.

 

[Steve59]

I appreciate the the TBs communities' input, communication and perspective on this and a lot of musical subjects.
At 32:07 of this video is another perspective on this subject I found enlightening.

 

[frankie5string]

Bang on. You can thank the generation that grew up with funk, who decided to take music out of schools, leaving these kids who want to make music but had no access to lessons, it's all still good.

Being of the mindset that "it's not as good as it used to be" is counter productive.

 

[Chicory Blue]

Speaking as a terminally-Caucasian millennial who spends most of her morning commutes listening to Parliament-Funkadelic, I don’t have many meaningful thoughts on where Funk has gone or who’s taken it there, but I’m sure glad it exists.

--^@

 

[DrayMiles]

Ouch. Nope. Read again. Not at all what OP said.

Yes, let’s stop trying to downplay the accomplishments of folks of color at the fear of offending. The OP didn’t imply that. Funk or blues are rooted in that culture, but it’s politically incorrect to say it in case someone has a thin skin. It’s not something that needs debating really... it’s an interesting discussion for this forum. It’s being done with respect and decorum. In fact, I’m impressed with how everyone is being mature and we can all state our views without malice or ignorance. TB is proving itself more irrelevant for my needs these days, occasionally I’m impressed... This is one of those times. So, I’ll keep reading it for now... I don’t like fluff and this turned into a nugget of interest. What a paradox...