Everyone rightfully heaps praise on Larnell’s and Corey’s absolutely inhuman performances, but not nearly enough attention is given to the bassist/composer Michael League and PARTICULARLY that horn section. In practically any other band with a more straightforward musical style people would be absolutely gushing about how tight the horns are on this. I’ve played with lots of really great horn sections, but this is another planet considering the complexity and lack of prep time. Ridiculously awesome.
The best part of the whole song is when the horns come back in following Corey's solo...it's impossible to be tighter. It's a lightning strike right after the drunkenness induced by Corey.
@ The only thing that could possibly explain why people don’t talk about those horns more IS that solo. Most folks are still too deep in shock after the solo to clock those brilliant horns I guess.
Facts! If someone had set a lump of coal in the middle of that horn section, by the end of the song it would’ve been a diamond. The triplets during the call and response section at the end. Unreal.
The guy that looks like Samuel L Jackson is Shaun Martin, a great producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist, who sadly died earlier this year. His song Yellow Jacket is one of my favorite of all time!
They have a structure to the song, but the solo's are improvised, if they're trading eights or an extended solo. These are master players. They know how to work in an ensemble and they know how to blow over changes (serious jazz roots). Most of these guys came out of Univ of North Texas in Denton. Michael League, the bass player, is the leader of the group and main composer. Lots of guys and gals come and go through the band. Many different iterations of the group. This is probably my favorite lineup. You will probably see at least 30 people in comments tell you Larnell Lewis (the drummer) learned all the tracks on the plane ride to Europe, to cover the gig for their drummer that got sick. That's only partially true. He'd played with them before and he already knew two of the tracks, this one and 'what about me'. He knew those and had performed them with the band before. The rest of the tracks he did learn on the trip over. They did have a few rehearsals to go through everything prior to this taping of the tracks. There's a documentary about the making of this that will tell you exactly what I just said. But, the myth continues to be propagated that Larnell learned it all on the plane and just walked in there and played it. I'm not taking anything away from him, he's a monster drummer and they called him to bail them out because they knew he could cover the gig. Check out his Zildjian Live! - Larnell Lewis, with Ghost Note. It's freaking awesome! We Like It Here is an album by American jazz fusion group Snarky Puppy that was released on February 25, 2014. From the moment Snarky Puppy played its first overseas show to a sold-out London crowd, they felt at home in Europe. Recorded and filmed live with a studio audience over 4 nights in the Netherlands, We Like It Here captures the band at its most explorative point in its career, in both composition and improvisation. The film created along side the album (included in the CD/DVD combo, and on Snarky Puppy's TH-cam page) also contains over an hour of interviews, behind the scenes tour footage in Europe, and alternate solo takes from the recording sessions. The track "Lingus" includes a solo on the synthesizer performed by Cory Henry.
The album was recorded in the middle of a studio audience to get the energy feedback. There is a "the making of..." video that explains everything. The whole album is great.
That whole album is nuts. Actually everything snarky puppy has done is absolutely top tier jazz fusion. Once again a whole group of true virtuosos. In fact parts of Jonas’s key solo in “work shit out” reminded me of Cory Henry’s style. Welcome to the next music for musicians rabbit hole!😂
This was an album recording done in front an audience, with the exception of the string section and 2 additional percussionists every other musician is a member of the band.
Both the sax and the trumpet were playing thru FX pedals. The first part of the song is in 5/4. The second part was 4/4 organized into 4 4-measure groups.
Snarky, it's a musical project. For this song, they have guest artists that are Monsters with solo carrers, Cory Henry , keys, Larnel Lewis drums, on other keys pianist Yellow Jackets , one of the greatest bands of fusion jazz, and on guitar Mark Letieri. All of these guests are masters !
Oooohhhh hearing this in Atmos would be awesome! Matt has been jammin’ this album since its re-release. I’ve stayed away in case we do more reactions to it…but I really want to hear more! 🤘🏽😎🤘🏽
@@stevenmonte7397 Thats a tough one. I kinda regret wording that comment the way I did, because I don't really think the idea of chasing who is best is worthwhile. Cory's solo is mind blowing. But then there is Art Tatum, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, and so many more.
The drummer, Larnell Lewis, is by a country mile my favourite drummer to listen to whoever he's behind at the time. Snarky Puppy is the trainset of Bass Player Mike League. The spare people around the place are the audience.
Anything off this project is worth a watch! What About Me? should be next! Yes, the drummer is one of the best ever! His solo on his own song The City Lights is so amazing!
OMG thank you so much for reacting to this!!!! and you are exactly right, this is jazz improv .. the song is structured,but the solos are 100% improv.. these musicians work on feel and are all top tier ..and i dont know who melly is..but damn , they got good taste in music...
Snarky Puppy is a corral of musicians available for whatever gig and schedule would allow. Bassist Michael League is one of the founders. The folks who did not play but had headphones were just listeners, not participants. Corey Henry was the keyboard soloist, Shaun Martin was the other keyboardist whose facial expressions were one of the highlights of this video. Condolences to Shaun Martin's family, which includes the Snarky Puppy family. Drummer Larnell Lewis was a last-minute substitute, who learned the tunes on the flight to the gig (that's the story, anyway).
We can’t even believe we haven’t heard them before. I’ve heard the name for a long time, but never listened! Better late than never! Haha. What an incredible group of people!
@@musikbyjh Yes! Please do a live reaction to the documentary! It's great fun and you'll appreciate what they do even more. It's called "Snarky Puppy - We like it here Documentary (DVD Interviews)" and lasts about half an hour
Welcome to the Snarky Puppy rabbit hole. Multi grammy, super musicians, all the goodies. And no, not rehearsed per se. Larnell Lewis on drums had the 7 hour plane trip to learn all the drum parts for all the songs on the album We Like it Here, then landing in Amsterdam found one more song awaiting for him in his e-mail. Drove to Utrecht where this was all taped, had four hours to meet everyone and block out what they were doing, something to eat then two recording sessions. Cory Henry doing the keys solo is no longer with Puppy. It was totally impromptu. Shaun Martin the other keys player sadly passed away in August. The other people were simply invitees to listen and be an audience.
Corey is unbelievable here. There was a chord progression as an underlayment going on and he was improvising a different chord progression over the top of it along with an improvised lead line. He gets into that by chording with one hand and leading with the other, then switches to following the lead in his right hand with a harmonic line mirroring the right in the left hand. He ends up shredding, improvising the exact same thing in both hands. Throughout this whole thing, he sets up a counter-groove along with the horns to the one being played by the bass and bass drum as well that ends up ending the piece. Larnell Lewis, mind you, after only playing through this a couple or few times, is playing both grooves.
Absolutely insane. Just reading this, and imagining being able to just do it…insane. This is one of the things that makes me so happy about this channel…having people show us this phenomenal music, and getting comments like yours, further breaking things down. You rock! 🤘🏽😎🤘🏽
my understanding re: Larnell is that Snarky Puppy's usual drummer had passport issues and couldn't fly. Michael League knew of Larnell (not sure if they had played together or not, especially as Larnell is Canadian and Micheal is based in Texas) and asked him to fill in. Larnell knew 2 of the songs but invented drum parts for the other tracks on the night plane over. The ride from the airport didn't show, but eventually they got Larnell to the studio for rehearhing and then first (and second?) performances that evening. I think they had 4 performances or 4 days of performances, I'm not sure which day this particular one was, but yes, you are talking about the drummer holding the band together and this is dead on, after what must only be maximum of tens of hours of playing together, probably less. Cory adjusting the timbre of his instrument at the start of the solo is a special moment to me, not just a preset, but feeling how he wants the voice to sit for that specific solo. And also when comping himself on the lower keyboard, jumping up to add vibrato to that one note at the end of the phrase. Little details only a master thinks to add.
See…this is why music, and artists like these people are just so phenomenal. What a story. And to see the outcome. And how Cory was getting his sound in real time. I mean…it’s just such a joy to watch this stuff. 🤘🏽😎🤘🏽
I believe this was filmed over 4 nights, and the best versions were kept for the album .There are alternate takes on You tube of some of these tracks band filmed an entire album over these nights. The band in their separate sections rehearsed separately at this site before hand and then they came together to record this with different solos and versions. Michael Leauge the base player is the band leader and organiser of a collective of musicians.
Check out "Outlier" from the "We Like It Here" series. Larnell slays the kit. Still can't get over the fact that Larnell was a last minute sub and learned this set on a flight between Toronto to the Netherlands! Next level players!
There’s a lot of talent in that room!!! The saxophonist is so very good. Lots of previous comments on the process, players vs listeners, etc. This is a great video. Gotta have more!!! 🎶 Cyd
2 x 128-channel Avid S6L consoles. Yep. Every single channel was used. Every band member got their own mix, and every audience member basically got what you heard in the final mix. Every single element of the drum kit got its own mic. This song was basically mixed, mastered, and recorded all at once. SP's sound engineers are absolute fucking GENIUSES. And yes, that entire keys solo was improv. Larnell Lewis, the drummer, learned most of the album on the flight over to the Netherlands in a single day. This ENTIRE album was written, rehearsed, recorded, and filmed in like a week or two - including travel. And Larnell didn't even show up until the afternoon of the FIRST day of filming lmao. If you made a Hollywood script about the talent and sheer insane chemistry that Snarky Puppy has had for two decades now, nobody would buy it because their story and the level of joy they play with is unmatched. It would be considered too incredible.
Wow!! Thank you for such a thorough and informative comment. Really appreciate that my brother. This was just amazing to see, and we quickly became fans. Matt has already burned through the album a few times and loves it! We HAVE to see them live one day! 🤘🏽😎🤘🏽
@@musikbyjh go through their most recent album videos on TH-cam. THEY HAD THREE DRUMMERS. AT THE SAME TIME. As sound engineers, you will simultaneously be cringing at the amount of work involved and amazed at the final product lol. I'd suggest you start with Trinity, one of my favorite songs from their newest Grammy-winning album Empire Central.
YES, you finally got here! I knew if you liked Dirty Loops you would like Snarky Puppy. Since you have Matt back you should consider the Musora video of Ulysees Owen and his group doing Nirvana (Jazz group hears a song for the first time, does their take on it Drumeo fashion). It blew up in the millions of views in a couple weeks. Also, The Warning have a series with Bugs Gonzalez the drummer from Los Lobos that apparently is old, but really cool. BTW, the effects on the sax and trumpet I believe are their audio run through a synthesizer. The Brecker Brother used to do this a lot in their group back in the 70s.
They invite people to come in and watch them while they record. They sell tickets to that. The string players didn't play on this tune, but they play on others.
Hats off to Jillian who nailed it not even knowing what she was seeing! Snarky Puppy are indeed a collective. There are usually 16 to 21 musicians for any project but about 25 people can legitimately call themselves members of Snarky Puppy. I would highly recommend reacting to "The Certain" its one movement of a jazz suite called Sylva. It's available on You Tube. Use the original take not the alternate take. The original version is better. It's with a full symphonic JAZZ orchestra! called "Metropole Orkest" Like Snarky Puppy, the orchestra are multiple Grammy Award winners.
Snarky Puppy is a fantastic collection of talented musicians, mostly jazz-trained... as should be obvious. I love the talent level & enjoy League's compositions; Lingus is one of my favorites. If you want to hear some incredible mind-bending microtonal and polyrhythmic work, check out musical genius (I do not use the term lightly) Jacob Collier. His understanding of music is unparalleled, as attested to by Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones. "All Night Long," "Little Blue," and his versions of "The Flintstones" are good places to start, but there is so much more...
Snarky Puppy is more a collective than anything else. Michael League has said there’s a core group of something like seven musicians and a few dozen others in the family that move in and out of the group as their individual schedules permit during the tours. All the members are world class players with their own careers going in addition to being a part of Snarky Puppy. So it’s not unusual for the lineup to change between performances when the ensemble is touring. The songs are actual compositions but are performed more along the lines of a what a jam band would do. League said in an interview that it works because each player is completely aware of what every other player is capable of doing and is good at. So depending on where a song is going on a given night, things can take unexpected turns resulting in some surprising performances. I’d also suggest checking out some of their smaller more intimate performances with special guests in their Family Dinner series of concert. The song Something with Laylah Hathaway is one of the most famous numbers from that series.
Thanks for this awesome comment! This is awesome to read about. What an awesome set of artists here. Matt @dreaddrum was so excited that he just got their new album and has been jammin’ it. I’m trying to hold off because I think we have a few more reactions to do from them. What phenomenal musicians!
They learned these tunes by ear, based on Michael League's compositions. Larnell Lewis learned his part a day before this recording. They are all superb musicians having a lot of fun.
As Samuel L Jackson...i mean Shaun Martin passed earlier this year, you must make sure to react to Sleeper from this same session/album. What Cory Henry has in chops in this amazing keys solo in Lingus, I believe Shaun has feeling for his chosen instrument....The Hosepipe. Yes, Man on Hosepipe is just amazing.🙂
Oh no!!! So sorry to hear he passed. Damn…that sucks. We def need to see this. Going down this rabbit hole with Snarky Puppy is going to be ridiculous. I just love talent and music. Thanks for the suggestion!
I think they’ve been a band since, like, 2008? 2010? They’ve been around for a while and they write all their own music (I think!). They have a pretty extensive back catalogue. This was another band I was introduced to at basically exactly the same time as Dirty Loops in 2014 by a fantastic trumpet player on my degree. It’s not hard to see why he loved these so much! 😂👌🏻
I'll be here for any Snarky Puppy content you pursue. Other very popular songs from this session (which is now 10 years old) are "Shofukan," "Outlier," "Sleeper," and "What About Me?" If you are interested in checking out something from their latest album, "Trinity" is absolutely incredible (incorporates 3 drummers and 3 percussionists along with all the other band members).
Its fun to watch the drummer Larnel Lewis when he visits drumeo. He hears Enter the sandman, for the first time and tries to learn it as fast as possible.
This session w Lingus was recorded in 2014; as many other have pointed out, this is how Snarky likes to record - with a live audience for the energy but otherwise set up like a recording studio so they can capture sound as cleanly as possible and do more usual post-production. They will book a space for multiple nights (3 or 4 or 5), bring in audience, and this way they get multiple takes of all tunes, and pick the best takes to release (but the takes are live, their is post-production, EQ / mixing / etc, but no editing or overdub). Check out their most recent recording Empire Central, many awesome vids on You Tube. There is a video with the SP engineers talking about the engineering of the Empire Central sessions too. See links in replies below
Another studio-with-audience recording to check out is "As" with Incognito at the Little Big Beat studio in Liechtenstein. Also "Track One" with DOMi & JD Beck from Nord Live Sessions (that is, playing live in a studio without audience).
If you feel like going down the SP rabbit hole; right back in the early years, Mike League established this collective approach and some of the best moments came from them playing for each other. Nobody gets to be in SP with a massive ego (except perhaps Cory Henry, but that’s justified 😂 - and he’s away doing his own thing now anyway). The groove belongs to everyone, and each player contributes and supports in equal measure. The history between Shaun Martin and Cory Henry is fascinating, the latter being the ‘Jedi’s apprentice’. They egged each other on and wound each other up in equal measure I reckon, until ultimately the Master’s crown passed to Cory during this 10mins of music.
You talked about it being heavily rehearsed but the fact is that it hardly was. All of the We Like It Here music was written shortly before the gig by the bass player. He sent out bare bones midi files to the band and they had maybe 2 days rehearsal but no drummer was present cause their main drummer had to bail out at last minute. Larnell Lewis flew in on the day of the first gig, had one rehearsal with the band and then it was time for the first show.
Geeeeze. That’s insane. Typically…things like this are rehearsed. But when you’re THIS good…playing jazz fusion, I’m not surprised at all to hear this came together quickly. So many amazing musicians!
Here's a guy (Josh Meader) playing the Cory Henry solo and end of the song (horns and Cory's keys) on guitar - th-cam.com/video/9JKO2qCTXNA/w-d-xo.html
Guys, it's not a Sherlock Holmes mystery - those other people in the room...? Perhaps you've heard someone refer to them as an AUDIENCE. You know, like a band does a live performance and anyone not in the band, but present during said performance, who may or may not have paid money to attend... yeah, audience member. That's the extent of the mystery.
Scott. Please try and understand that not everything is so cut and dry. Especially as an engineer who’s done gigs like this, where musicians were “hanging out” waiting for their turn/song to play. We had no idea if this was shot in the middle of an entire performance, or if this was just a one off video. We had no idea. All we had was a link, and we sat down and watched it with zero knowledge. There’s no need to leave comments like this as if we’re dumb. There could have been a few possibilities and we simply mentioned them. Please don’t come here and be a dick. It’s not welcomed.
If you want to see how jazz bands work out structure, there's a great example of a band thinking it through on the fly where they were challenged to play a Nirvana song after one listen th-cam.com/video/3pYHCGYJbw0/w-d-xo.html
First time I saw this I in an instant knew that Snarky Puppy is a bunch of musiscians playing together in different settings for different songs. And that the other people with headphones are audince. Not hard to figure out.
That’s awesome to have such perfect instincts and awareness! Good on ya for being so keen. As for “not hard to figure out” about the audience…as I mentioned, we could have only been seeing an excerpt from a whole session. I’ve worked many gigs with revolving musicians. That’s not unheard of. So, I assumed that COULD be what will happen…especially since I’ve seen it first hand. Not hard to figure that could be a possibility either.
Are all these people Snarky Puppy one of you asked. No only the guy playing the white Stratocaster guitar is Snarky Puppy. The rest of them are AI generated holograms.
Ahhh makes sense. Man, AI has gotten so good to be able to create human hands like that. A few days ago, AI was pretty bad…but I guess White Strat homie worked his magic. 😬
Are y’all really musician newbies? Cuz you’re over a decade late discovering SP. Regardless of what genre you’re into. These are world class musicians! Better late than never, I guess. First off, SP has been doing the ‘silent disco’ performances since the mid 2000s since their Tell Your Friends project. Definitely check that out. Shaun Martin (rest in peace) aka ‘Sam Jackson’ was a multi Grammy winning keyboardist giving Cory Henry the stank face the whole time. And Cory giving the greatest keyboard solo in all of modern times in this track. I love Larnell on the drums, who learned all the material on this session thru the plane ride on the way there from Canada. But I much prefer their original drummer Sput Searight who had a much grittier, funkier style than Larnell. I know that’s a hot take with SP fans, but definitely check out his current band Ghost Note to see what I mean. Anyway, didn’t mean to come off rude. Can’t gate keep a great band like SP for too long!
To answer your question, no, we’re not musician newbies. I’m not sure if you know just how many phenomenal musicians there are in the world…but there’s a lot. When you’re ingrained in 1, maybe 2 genres for most of your life, and no one shows you these things, it’s pretty easy to understand why we wouldn’t know them. And yes, better late than never is probably a better way to start out than “are yall newbie musicians?”. We’re pretty respectful here. I’m sure I could probably name world class musicians that you’ve never heard of, and I wouldn’t be shocked. I’m glad you didn’t “mean to come off rude”. But just maybe for next time, understand that lots of people don’t know everyone and everything. Ghost Note is absolutely on my radar and I’ve been DYING to see them live. Thundercat is ridiculous on the bass. But back to SP…yeah, this was exceptional and we’re so happy to finally have heard this stuff. I want to listen to the new album (well, the new remastered/remixed version that just came out) but we need to see what we have on the schedule to react to. Do you have any suggestions by then that we absolutely HAVE to react to?
I know you said we're not getting a Home Free reaction every friday anymore, but I already miss it😭. I was sitting and waiting for HomeFriday and this one came up I thoufht wtf? But then I remembered🫣🤦🏻♀️Oh, well turning off TH-cam again untill 19:00 when the new HF video premiers
they set up the song but they leave the jam sesstion for musicians to imporvise. By the way, the drumer started to arrange the drum session while he is taking a flight to the way recording this.
Red headphones: musicians
Grey headphones: audience
I probably watched this video 12 times before I realized the headphones were color coded.
@@Sean-jq3ky I legitimately never noticed this 😮
Everyone rightfully heaps praise on Larnell’s and Corey’s absolutely inhuman performances, but not nearly enough attention is given to the bassist/composer Michael League and PARTICULARLY that horn section. In practically any other band with a more straightforward musical style people would be absolutely gushing about how tight the horns are on this. I’ve played with lots of really great horn sections, but this is another planet considering the complexity and lack of prep time. Ridiculously awesome.
The best part of the whole song is when the horns come back in following Corey's solo...it's impossible to be tighter. It's a lightning strike right after the drunkenness induced by Corey.
@ The only thing that could possibly explain why people don’t talk about those horns more IS that solo. Most folks are still too deep in shock after the solo to clock those brilliant horns I guess.
Facts! If someone had set a lump of coal in the middle of that horn section, by the end of the song it would’ve been a diamond. The triplets during the call and response section at the end. Unreal.
@@Trapper50cal I love his little queue head nod that the solo is done, then they all come in next time around perfectly. So impressive!
The guy that looks like Samuel L Jackson is Shaun Martin, a great producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist, who sadly died earlier this year. His song Yellow Jacket is one of my favorite of all time!
He looks nothing like Samuel L Jackson😂😂
RIP Shaun! Such a tragic loss. he was a good dude!
OMG!!
I didn't know he's passed away...
That is really sad...
What a loss... 😢
They have a structure to the song, but the solo's are improvised, if they're trading eights or an extended solo. These are master players. They know how to work in an ensemble and they know how to blow over changes (serious jazz roots). Most of these guys came out of Univ of North Texas in Denton. Michael League, the bass player, is the leader of the group and main composer. Lots of guys and gals come and go through the band. Many different iterations of the group. This is probably my favorite lineup. You will probably see at least 30 people in comments tell you Larnell Lewis (the drummer) learned all the tracks on the plane ride to Europe, to cover the gig for their drummer that got sick. That's only partially true. He'd played with them before and he already knew two of the tracks, this one and 'what about me'. He knew those and had performed them with the band before. The rest of the tracks he did learn on the trip over. They did have a few rehearsals to go through everything prior to this taping of the tracks. There's a documentary about the making of this that will tell you exactly what I just said. But, the myth continues to be propagated that Larnell learned it all on the plane and just walked in there and played it. I'm not taking anything away from him, he's a monster drummer and they called him to bail them out because they knew he could cover the gig. Check out his Zildjian Live! - Larnell Lewis, with Ghost Note. It's freaking awesome!
We Like It Here is an album by American jazz fusion group Snarky Puppy that was released on February 25, 2014. From the moment Snarky Puppy played its first overseas show to a sold-out London crowd, they felt at home in Europe. Recorded and filmed live with a studio audience over 4 nights in the Netherlands, We Like It Here captures the band at its most explorative point in its career, in both composition and improvisation. The film created along side the album (included in the CD/DVD combo, and on Snarky Puppy's TH-cam page) also contains over an hour of interviews, behind the scenes tour footage in Europe, and alternate solo takes from the recording sessions. The track "Lingus" includes a solo on the synthesizer performed by Cory Henry.
The album was recorded in the middle of a studio audience to get the energy feedback. There is a "the making of..." video that explains everything. The whole album is great.
That whole album is nuts. Actually everything snarky puppy has done is absolutely top tier jazz fusion. Once again a whole group of true virtuosos. In fact parts of Jonas’s key solo in “work shit out” reminded me of Cory Henry’s style.
Welcome to the next music for musicians rabbit hole!😂
Jazz-prog fusion with heaps of gospel, Electronica, and hip-hop influences. Been a huge fan of this collective for well over a decade. \m/
The drummer, Larnell Lewis, was a last minute fill-in drummer that learned these songs on the plane ride over. He’s been featured in Drumeo videos.
and if he couldnt fill in Cory Henry would have (I just learned this the other day, he's that good at the drums)
This was an album recording done in front an audience, with the exception of the string section and 2 additional percussionists every other musician is a member of the band.
Cory Henry ain’t human. This is always fun to watch. Someone already mentioned Jacob Collier, but you guys should go down that rabbit hole, too.
5/4 all the way to the solo..then a funky 4/4
This video is recorded in The Netherlands. All the people with red headphones are musicians and with the white ones are public.
Both the sax and the trumpet were playing thru FX pedals. The first part of the song is in 5/4. The second part was 4/4 organized into 4 4-measure groups.
Next: Shofukan, Outlier, Tio macaco - they all great, imho
Snarky, it's a musical project. For this song, they have guest artists that are Monsters with solo carrers, Cory Henry , keys, Larnel Lewis drums, on other keys pianist Yellow Jackets , one of the greatest bands of fusion jazz, and on guitar Mark Letieri. All of these guests are masters !
They just reissued this album remixed and remastered in Dolby Atmos. Also, RIP Shaun.
Oooohhhh hearing this in Atmos would be awesome! Matt has been jammin’ this album since its re-release. I’ve stayed away in case we do more reactions to it…but I really want to hear more!
🤘🏽😎🤘🏽
You definitely have to go down the Snarky Puppy rabbit hole. Everything they do is magic.
I'll always be here for Snarky Puppy and Dirty Loops. My two favorite contemporary bands!
same!
You just saw Cory Henry play what many musicians consider to be the finest improvised keyboard solo ever.
I'm not sure about "ever", but I definitely would agree that is the best of the last 25-30 years.
@@ashebanow Throw out the better one. Just curious!
@@stevenmonte7397 Thats a tough one. I kinda regret wording that comment the way I did, because I don't really think the idea of chasing who is best is worthwhile. Cory's solo is mind blowing. But then there is Art Tatum, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, and so many more.
The drummer, Larnell Lewis, is by a country mile my favourite drummer to listen to whoever he's behind at the time.
Snarky Puppy is the trainset of Bass Player Mike League. The spare people around the place are the audience.
Anything off this project is worth a watch! What About Me? should be next! Yes, the drummer is one of the best ever! His solo on his own song The City Lights is so amazing!
OMG thank you so much for reacting to this!!!!
and you are exactly right, this is jazz improv .. the song is structured,but the solos are 100% improv.. these musicians work on feel and are all top tier ..and i dont know who melly is..but damn , they got good taste in music...
Saw them last year on their tour, and this was the encore. Absolutely tore the house down. Such a great live show. So much energy.
Snarky Puppy is a corral of musicians available for whatever gig and schedule would allow. Bassist Michael League is one of the founders. The folks who did not play but had headphones were just listeners, not participants. Corey Henry was the keyboard soloist, Shaun Martin was the other keyboardist whose facial expressions were one of the highlights of this video. Condolences to Shaun Martin's family, which includes the Snarky Puppy family. Drummer Larnell Lewis was a last-minute substitute, who learned the tunes on the flight to the gig (that's the story, anyway).
So refreshing to see that there are still people out there who haven't heard Lingus. I love watching new people discover them on TH-cam!
We can’t even believe we haven’t heard them before. I’ve heard the name for a long time, but never listened! Better late than never! Haha. What an incredible group of people!
Got to see Snarky Puppy open for Steely Dan a couple years ago. Incredible group.Will go see them anytime they are within 200 miles of me.
Watch the documentary on the making of this album; mind blowing stuff.
We’ll have to look into that! Didn’t realize there was one. Maybe we should do a live reaction to it?
@@musikbyjh Yes! Please do a live reaction to the documentary! It's great fun and you'll appreciate what they do even more. It's called "Snarky Puppy - We like it here Documentary (DVD Interviews)" and lasts about half an hour
Welcome to the Snarky Puppy rabbit hole. Multi grammy, super musicians, all the goodies. And no, not rehearsed per se. Larnell Lewis on drums had the 7 hour plane trip to learn all the drum parts for all the songs on the album We Like it Here, then landing in Amsterdam found one more song awaiting for him in his e-mail. Drove to Utrecht where this was all taped, had four hours to meet everyone and block out what they were doing, something to eat then two recording sessions. Cory Henry doing the keys solo is no longer with Puppy. It was totally impromptu. Shaun Martin the other keys player sadly passed away in August. The other people were simply invitees to listen and be an audience.
Oh, no! I didn't know about Shaun's passing, that's so sad... :(
Glad I got to see him play in the end of 2022.
Waaaaa, Snarky Puppy?! 🤩 LFG!!!
Corey is unbelievable here. There was a chord progression as an underlayment going on and he was improvising a different chord progression over the top of it along with an improvised lead line. He gets into that by chording with one hand and leading with the other, then switches to following the lead in his right hand with a harmonic line mirroring the right in the left hand. He ends up shredding, improvising the exact same thing in both hands. Throughout this whole thing, he sets up a counter-groove along with the horns to the one being played by the bass and bass drum as well that ends up ending the piece. Larnell Lewis, mind you, after only playing through this a couple or few times, is playing both grooves.
Absolutely insane. Just reading this, and imagining being able to just do it…insane. This is one of the things that makes me so happy about this channel…having people show us this phenomenal music, and getting comments like yours, further breaking things down. You rock!
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my understanding re: Larnell is that Snarky Puppy's usual drummer had passport issues and couldn't fly. Michael League knew of Larnell (not sure if they had played together or not, especially as Larnell is Canadian and Micheal is based in Texas) and asked him to fill in. Larnell knew 2 of the songs but invented drum parts for the other tracks on the night plane over. The ride from the airport didn't show, but eventually they got Larnell to the studio for rehearhing and then first (and second?) performances that evening. I think they had 4 performances or 4 days of performances, I'm not sure which day this particular one was, but yes, you are talking about the drummer holding the band together and this is dead on, after what must only be maximum of tens of hours of playing together, probably less.
Cory adjusting the timbre of his instrument at the start of the solo is a special moment to me, not just a preset, but feeling how he wants the voice to sit for that specific solo. And also when comping himself on the lower keyboard, jumping up to add vibrato to that one note at the end of the phrase. Little details only a master thinks to add.
See…this is why music, and artists like these people are just so phenomenal. What a story. And to see the outcome. And how Cory was getting his sound in real time. I mean…it’s just such a joy to watch this stuff.
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I believe this was filmed over 4 nights, and the best versions were kept for the album .There are alternate takes on You tube of some of these tracks
band filmed an entire album over these nights. The band in their separate sections rehearsed separately at this site before hand and then they came together to record this with different solos and versions.
Michael Leauge the base player is the band leader and organiser of a collective of musicians.
Chorus on the sax, wah on the trumpet
Check out "Outlier" from the "We Like It Here" series. Larnell slays the kit. Still can't get over the fact that Larnell was a last minute sub and learned this set on a flight between Toronto to the Netherlands! Next level players!
There’s a lot of talent in that room!!! The saxophonist is so very good. Lots of previous comments on the process, players vs listeners, etc. This is a great video. Gotta have more!!! 🎶 Cyd
Melli has incredible musical tastes and I’m delighted she is sharing! Loved watching you three get into this one - thanks! ♥️🤗
Started by North Texas students baby! my Alma Mater! Best jazz school in the country!
Allegedly Larnell learnt that song on the flight over, I believe he was a last minute stand in.
2 x 128-channel Avid S6L consoles. Yep. Every single channel was used. Every band member got their own mix, and every audience member basically got what you heard in the final mix. Every single element of the drum kit got its own mic. This song was basically mixed, mastered, and recorded all at once. SP's sound engineers are absolute fucking GENIUSES. And yes, that entire keys solo was improv. Larnell Lewis, the drummer, learned most of the album on the flight over to the Netherlands in a single day. This ENTIRE album was written, rehearsed, recorded, and filmed in like a week or two - including travel. And Larnell didn't even show up until the afternoon of the FIRST day of filming lmao. If you made a Hollywood script about the talent and sheer insane chemistry that Snarky Puppy has had for two decades now, nobody would buy it because their story and the level of joy they play with is unmatched. It would be considered too incredible.
Wow!! Thank you for such a thorough and informative comment. Really appreciate that my brother. This was just amazing to see, and we quickly became fans. Matt has already burned through the album a few times and loves it! We HAVE to see them live one day!
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@@musikbyjh go through their most recent album videos on TH-cam. THEY HAD THREE DRUMMERS. AT THE SAME TIME.
As sound engineers, you will simultaneously be cringing at the amount of work involved and amazed at the final product lol. I'd suggest you start with Trinity, one of my favorite songs from their newest Grammy-winning album Empire Central.
YES, you finally got here! I knew if you liked Dirty Loops you would like Snarky Puppy. Since you have Matt back you should consider the Musora video of Ulysees Owen and his group doing Nirvana (Jazz group hears a song for the first time, does their take on it Drumeo fashion). It blew up in the millions of views in a couple weeks. Also, The Warning have a series with Bugs Gonzalez the drummer from Los Lobos that apparently is old, but really cool. BTW, the effects on the sax and trumpet I believe are their audio run through a synthesizer. The Brecker Brother used to do this a lot in their group back in the 70s.
and yes they are improvising. Jazz musicians at their best.
Second keyboard player is Shaun Martin (the one who made the faces and walked away) and is a mutltiple time Grammy winner.
They invite people to come in and watch them while they record. They sell tickets to that. The string players didn't play on this tune, but they play on others.
Hats off to Jillian who nailed it not even knowing what she was seeing! Snarky Puppy are indeed a collective. There are usually 16 to 21 musicians for any project but about 25 people can legitimately call themselves members of Snarky Puppy. I would highly recommend reacting to "The Certain" its one movement of a jazz suite called Sylva. It's available on You Tube. Use the original take not the alternate take. The original version is better. It's with a full symphonic JAZZ orchestra! called "Metropole Orkest" Like Snarky Puppy, the orchestra are multiple Grammy Award winners.
Hey, thanks!! Appreciate the compliment, super helpful info, and recommendation. More SP coming soon!!
Can't wait for you to do.... Outlier!!
Snarky Puppy is a fantastic collection of talented musicians, mostly jazz-trained... as should be obvious. I love the talent level & enjoy League's compositions; Lingus is one of my favorites. If you want to hear some incredible mind-bending microtonal and polyrhythmic work, check out musical genius (I do not use the term lightly) Jacob Collier. His understanding of music is unparalleled, as attested to by Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones. "All Night Long," "Little Blue," and his versions of "The Flintstones" are good places to start, but there is so much more...
Snarky Puppy is more a collective than anything else. Michael League has said there’s a core group of something like seven musicians and a few dozen others in the family that move in and out of the group as their individual schedules permit during the tours. All the members are world class players with their own careers going in addition to being a part of Snarky Puppy. So it’s not unusual for the lineup to change between performances when the ensemble is touring.
The songs are actual compositions but are performed more along the lines of a what a jam band would do. League said in an interview that it works because each player is completely aware of what every other player is capable of doing and is good at. So depending on where a song is going on a given night, things can take unexpected turns resulting in some surprising performances.
I’d also suggest checking out some of their smaller more intimate performances with special guests in their Family Dinner series of concert. The song Something with Laylah Hathaway is one of the most famous numbers from that series.
Thanks for this awesome comment! This is awesome to read about. What an awesome set of artists here. Matt @dreaddrum was so excited that he just got their new album and has been jammin’ it. I’m trying to hold off because I think we have a few more reactions to do from them. What phenomenal musicians!
They learned these tunes by ear, based on Michael League's compositions. Larnell Lewis learned his part a day before this recording. They are all superb musicians having a lot of fun.
How many you see reading music? Heh...
Ha! I don’t think o was paying attention to that per se. I was just in awe at this performance. So awesome!
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As Samuel L Jackson...i mean Shaun Martin passed earlier this year, you must make sure to react to Sleeper from this same session/album. What Cory Henry has in chops in this amazing keys solo in Lingus, I believe Shaun has feeling for his chosen instrument....The Hosepipe.
Yes, Man on Hosepipe is just amazing.🙂
Oh no!!! So sorry to hear he passed. Damn…that sucks. We def need to see this. Going down this rabbit hole with Snarky Puppy is going to be ridiculous. I just love talent and music. Thanks for the suggestion!
I think they’ve been a band since, like, 2008? 2010? They’ve been around for a while and they write all their own music (I think!). They have a pretty extensive back catalogue. This was another band I was introduced to at basically exactly the same time as Dirty Loops in 2014 by a fantastic trumpet player on my degree. It’s not hard to see why he loved these so much! 😂👌🏻
I'll be here for any Snarky Puppy content you pursue. Other very popular songs from this session (which is now 10 years old) are "Shofukan," "Outlier," "Sleeper," and "What About Me?" If you are interested in checking out something from their latest album, "Trinity" is absolutely incredible (incorporates 3 drummers and 3 percussionists along with all the other band members).
Its fun to watch the drummer Larnel Lewis when he visits drumeo. He hears Enter the sandman, for the first time and tries to learn it as fast as possible.
This session w Lingus was recorded in 2014; as many other have pointed out, this is how Snarky likes to record - with a live audience for the energy but otherwise set up like a recording studio so they can capture sound as cleanly as possible and do more usual post-production. They will book a space for multiple nights (3 or 4 or 5), bring in audience, and this way they get multiple takes of all tunes, and pick the best takes to release (but the takes are live, their is post-production, EQ / mixing / etc, but no editing or overdub). Check out their most recent recording Empire Central, many awesome vids on You Tube. There is a video with the SP engineers talking about the engineering of the Empire Central sessions too. See links in replies below
th-cam.com/video/5mNSmxtWkQM/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/C-D7n_YIeK0/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/play/PLeRL4Xd1rxH3lfBTkDEgPokTKmnlJw8GN.html
Thank you so much for this awesome comment!! We love learning about this stuff like this. I really hope we can get a chance to see them do this live!
@@musikbyjh definitely - they are great live (I've probably seen Snarky live 15 times or more over the last 8 years)
5/4 time sig, Dorian mode. I love it 🤤 The bass section is naaaasty!!
Another studio-with-audience recording to check out is "As" with Incognito at the Little Big Beat studio in Liechtenstein.
Also "Track One" with DOMi & JD Beck from Nord Live Sessions (that is, playing live in a studio without audience).
There is a lot of Snarky Puppy for you to react to. Maybe Dirty Loops on Tuesday and Snarky Puppy on another day.
Everyone with Red headphones are in the band, everyone else is just an audience member.
You have to check out the whole session. But listen to Snarky Puppy & Metropole Orkest - The Curtain (Official Video) ...... one word EPIC
If you feel like going down the SP rabbit hole; right back in the early years, Mike League established this collective approach and some of the best moments came from them playing for each other. Nobody gets to be in SP with a massive ego (except perhaps Cory Henry, but that’s justified 😂 - and he’s away doing his own thing now anyway). The groove belongs to everyone, and each player contributes and supports in equal measure.
The history between Shaun Martin and Cory Henry is fascinating, the latter being the ‘Jedi’s apprentice’. They egged each other on and wound each other up in equal measure I reckon, until ultimately the Master’s crown passed to Cory during this 10mins of music.
Great comment. Thank you for this gem - going to check out!
Snarky Puppy has a track featuring Jacob Collier which is amazing..everything they do is fantastic
Snarky puppy sleeper is the best song in my opinion. Please check it out.
You talked about it being heavily rehearsed but the fact is that it hardly was. All of the We Like It Here music was written shortly before the gig by the bass player. He sent out bare bones midi files to the band and they had maybe 2 days rehearsal but no drummer was present cause their main drummer had to bail out at last minute. Larnell Lewis flew in on the day of the first gig, had one rehearsal with the band and then it was time for the first show.
Geeeeze. That’s insane. Typically…things like this are rehearsed. But when you’re THIS good…playing jazz fusion, I’m not surprised at all to hear this came together quickly. So many amazing musicians!
The sax solo is done with chorus effect. Short wave, long time
I believe it was a listening party. The group wore red headphones.
Here's a guy (Josh Meader) playing the Cory Henry solo and end of the song (horns and Cory's keys) on guitar - th-cam.com/video/9JKO2qCTXNA/w-d-xo.html
Guys, it's not a Sherlock Holmes mystery - those other people in the room...? Perhaps you've heard someone refer to them as an AUDIENCE. You know, like a band does a live performance and anyone not in the band, but present during said performance, who may or may not have paid money to attend... yeah, audience member. That's the extent of the mystery.
Scott. Please try and understand that not everything is so cut and dry. Especially as an engineer who’s done gigs like this, where musicians were “hanging out” waiting for their turn/song to play. We had no idea if this was shot in the middle of an entire performance, or if this was just a one off video. We had no idea. All we had was a link, and we sat down and watched it with zero knowledge. There’s no need to leave comments like this as if we’re dumb. There could have been a few possibilities and we simply mentioned them. Please don’t come here and be a dick. It’s not welcomed.
Watch the documentary, it answers all you're questions..
Of course we can go do research and answer questions…but it’s much more fun to engage with people and chat.
Welcome to THE RABBIT HOLE haha The whole album We Like It Here is amazing, but check out What About Me next time
Eargasm
RIP Shaun Martin(Samuel L Jackson)
If you want to see how jazz bands work out structure, there's a great example of a band thinking it through on the fly where they were challenged to play a Nirvana song after one listen th-cam.com/video/3pYHCGYJbw0/w-d-xo.html
First time I saw this I in an instant knew that Snarky Puppy is a bunch of musiscians playing together in different settings for different songs. And that the other people with headphones are audince. Not hard to figure out.
That’s awesome to have such perfect instincts and awareness! Good on ya for being so keen.
As for “not hard to figure out” about the audience…as I mentioned, we could have only been seeing an excerpt from a whole session. I’ve worked many gigs with revolving musicians. That’s not unheard of. So, I assumed that COULD be what will happen…especially since I’ve seen it first hand. Not hard to figure that could be a possibility either.
They learned these tunes in around a week. They learn the song structure and the solos are all improvised.
th-cam.com/video/epe-rJNljdI/w-d-xo.html
Are all these people Snarky Puppy one of you asked. No only the guy playing the white Stratocaster guitar is Snarky Puppy. The rest of them are AI generated holograms.
Ahhh makes sense. Man, AI has gotten so good to be able to create human hands like that. A few days ago, AI was pretty bad…but I guess White Strat homie worked his magic. 😬
Are y’all really musician newbies? Cuz you’re over a decade late discovering SP. Regardless of what genre you’re into. These are world class musicians! Better late than never, I guess. First off, SP has been doing the ‘silent disco’ performances since the mid 2000s since their Tell Your Friends project. Definitely check that out. Shaun Martin (rest in peace) aka ‘Sam Jackson’ was a multi Grammy winning keyboardist giving Cory Henry the stank face the whole time. And Cory giving the greatest keyboard solo in all of modern times in this track. I love Larnell on the drums, who learned all the material on this session thru the plane ride on the way there from Canada. But I much prefer their original drummer Sput Searight who had a much grittier, funkier style than Larnell. I know that’s a hot take with SP fans, but definitely check out his current band Ghost Note to see what I mean. Anyway, didn’t mean to come off rude. Can’t gate keep a great band like SP for too long!
To answer your question, no, we’re not musician newbies. I’m not sure if you know just how many phenomenal musicians there are in the world…but there’s a lot. When you’re ingrained in 1, maybe 2 genres for most of your life, and no one shows you these things, it’s pretty easy to understand why we wouldn’t know them. And yes, better late than never is probably a better way to start out than “are yall newbie musicians?”. We’re pretty respectful here. I’m sure I could probably name world class musicians that you’ve never heard of, and I wouldn’t be shocked.
I’m glad you didn’t “mean to come off rude”. But just maybe for next time, understand that lots of people don’t know everyone and everything.
Ghost Note is absolutely on my radar and I’ve been DYING to see them live. Thundercat is ridiculous on the bass.
But back to SP…yeah, this was exceptional and we’re so happy to finally have heard this stuff. I want to listen to the new album (well, the new remastered/remixed version that just came out) but we need to see what we have on the schedule to react to.
Do you have any suggestions by then that we absolutely HAVE to react to?
Is this a jazz?😂😂
I mean…when ya don’t know what you’re getting in to…it was a pretty good guess. Lol
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5/4
I know you said we're not getting a Home Free reaction every friday anymore, but I already miss it😭. I was sitting and waiting for HomeFriday and this one came up I thoufht wtf? But then I remembered🫣🤦🏻♀️Oh, well turning off TH-cam again untill 19:00 when the new HF video premiers
Cory Henry on the keyboard is the best.
th-cam.com/video/t34rVX-svBI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=pE2obZLY2cIWrHEp
they set up the song but they leave the jam sesstion for musicians to imporvise. By the way, the drumer started to arrange the drum session while he is taking a flight to the way recording this.