Inside the Making of Snarky Puppy's Grammy-Winning Album: Empire Central
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- This is how 19 instrumentalists learned, rehearsed, and arranged 16 brand new songs in 5 days, then recorded them live in front of a studio audience.
Snarky Puppy's Empire Central won the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album.
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Snarky Puppy is:
Bob Lanzetti - Electric guitar
Mark Lettieri - Electric guitar
Chris McQueen - Electric guitar
Justin Stanton - Fender Rhodes Mark 8 and Yamaha CP70 electric piano (solo)
Bobby Sparks - Hammond B3 organ and ARP String Ensemble
Bill Laurance - Hohner D6 Clavinet
Shaun Martin - Korg Kronos
Zach Brock - Violin
Mike “Maz” Maher - Trumpet
Jay Jennings - Trumpet
Chris Bullock - Tenor sax, flute, bass clarinet, soprano sax
Bob Reynolds - Tenor sax, soprano sax
Michael League - Electric bass, key bass
Nate Werth - Percussion
Keita Ogawa - Percussion
Marcelo Woloski - Percussion
Jason “JT” Thomas - Drum set
Larnell Lewis - Drum set
Jamison Ross - Drum set
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Signed Albums ► bit.ly/signed_cds
60 bpm T-shirt ► bit.ly/Bobs60bp...
Practice Book ► bit.ly/saxpower...
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Bob Reynolds is a 3x GRAMMY® Award-winning saxophonist with Snarky Puppy. He's toured with John Mayer, Larry Carlton, and many others and released 12 solo albums-4 of which reached the Top 10 in Billboard's Jazz Charts. A pioneering educator, Bob has coached thousands of musicians since 2010 through his innovative Virtual Studio at bobsvirtualstud.... He is a D'Addario Woodwinds artist, TH-camr, and surfer. He lives with his wife and kids in Los Angeles, CA.
“Bob is one hell of a saxophonist! His sound is rich and his execution is effortless.”
Michael Brecker
“…Reynolds flexes an assured hand with melding hip-swiveling jazz and funk as a bandleader.”
LA TIMES
“Some of the freshest, most compelling, and most soulful music I have heard recently. Bob Reynolds is an amazing musician, with something very exciting and original to say.”
Joshua Redman
#snarkypuppy #empirecentral
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The crazy part is in all of this chaos you're filming everything too!! Incredible video, thanks so much for sharing with us!
LOVED this, Bob!
Thanks, Scott
I am still procesing and thinking about All the work and discipline that a musician should have to be there. Amazing, and thank for share with us, This is the real use of the social media, you are real influencers!!!!
Been waiting for this one. Congratulations to you, Bob, and all the Pups on the Grammy, well deserved! The musicianship is of course impossibly stellar. I also can't wrap my head around how such great sound can be engineered in that environment.
Nic Hard (recording engineer) and Mike Harrisson (live sound engineer) are a couple of audio wizards.
Bob Reynolds, we love and appreciate you!
Damn that rehearsal clip of Portal was so rad! Thanks so much for sharing Bob! This kind of stuff is a music nerds dream!!
It took me weeks to decide what of the 2 hour horn sectional footage to keep. ☺️ Thank you
Been waiting for this video since I heard we have a new album coming! Proud to be a fan!
Man!!!!!!! I had a super busy and stressful work day today and thought I'd relax and catchup with some YT. Feel waaaay more stressed now after watching that hahaha. Seriously though, amazing, I don't know how you guys can pull off that sort of intensity, especially on not enough sleep. Makes me love and appreciate Snarky all the more. Kudos!
When I'm learning a new song I do it in 15-20 min tranches with breaks of similar duration or more. It's to do with how your memory "plasticises" & becomes volatile before "setting". If you do prolonged hours of memorizing your memory never gets a chance to "set" until the very end. Try this method (if not already used) and see if it works for you. I'd be interested to get more empirical data on this.
Yup. This is good practice. I like your use of the word "tranches." Accurate.
great album. great story.
As a big Bond fan I'd like to submit you guys ought to put a bug in the ears of the producers about doing the next Bond Theme. Hey 5 Grammys give you a leg up on just about any of today's music makers. Love your work!
Love that idea!
@@bobreynolds Wow, thanks for your comment! Your work with Metropole indicates the group's experience with orchestration. I see a deal in your future!
Holy shhh***** Incredible! Thanks for this peek into the process. Wow. Lesser musicians, lesser human beings could never pull it off, let alone so beautifully.
Only Snarky Puppy can do this, it's actually a miracle that this is possible
This was so incredibly inspiring to watch! Warm thanks all the way from Sweden!
Thank you so much for making this, this was amazing to see, thank you for sharing your incredible talent with the world. ❤
That really awesome Bob! Thank you for the inspiration and for sharing this special moments. This video means a lot to me.
Greetings from Algeria
I really wish I could've made your Norway concert last autumn; there's not a single track on that album that doesn't have me bopping my head! At least it was nice to see from some pictures that you kept a VIP ticket for my man Bjørn Vidar, who I've had as a teacher/band leader at a jazz improv summer course :)
Does actually Snarky has officially someone to do documentation?
Or is it just only you really following the band and in between playing u record these super precious moments
Just me
It helps when you have god level playing skills
I'm not experienced in Logic or Ableton, is there no easy way to export those files into written music? That seems like a no brainer to make everyone's life easier.
Funny story.
I actually had tickets and a hotel booked for the recording. But after the date changed to early March, I had to get a refund because my son was born Feb 28th. I will forever hold this over his head. 😂
All of that and he manages to get to his son's game. Bravo 👏🏼
Priorities. 👍
@@bobreynoldsThat's awesome that you were able to support your son in that way.
the least he could do, kid saved his life 1:58 😉
The way the video goes from like 23 minutes of rehearsal chaos and exciting stress to son's baseball game is probably one of the most beautiful and subtly cathartic endings to a music vlog (or vlog in general) I've ever seen.
Dang. This is so inspiring. It's not just about how virtuous you guys are but the miracle you do with (only) 24 hours a day. It's more about the dedication, professionalism and passion behind the scenes than anything else. Thank you!
One of the top questions we get is "How do you guys learn all that music?" Here's how... :)
You all are really amazing at finding that chemistry when the lights turn on. You and the rest of the band played some amazing and memorable stuff on this album. Thank you. I know you all have lives outside of this we never see, and the fact you all bring so much to these performances is just incredible.
WOW, I have seen videos like these before and I am amazed by how talented people HAVE to memorize materials. Don't get me wrong, its good to memorize your parts, BUT, I wonder if there is something much efficient way. Like recording each part (like a studio booth ) and exporting those parts in music sheet. I am assuming that parts are recorded individually and probably given to each member as part of their learning process🤔. Would be great if in the IT field, music notation companies had the ability to record audio into notation. I think Sibelius and/or Finale has something like that but not sure how reliable it is. Either way, its crazy to see how much one can put in their head in such amount of time. 🤯. I am sure you guys already knew about this but wonder why when trying to learn parts that are recorded via Logic Pro, yall don't use the notation part since Logic converts the midi information into notation. Just curious.
Great video Bob. Thanks for the great work and effort you put into this. Greetings from Denmark.
This answered that question while also not answering it at all. :D
This is what I've been the most interested in lately, especially when watching guest musicians come up and play with Cory Wong's band. Thank you for the insight, Bob. You guys work hard out there. Is your work life always this hectic?!
So basically Snarky Puppy took the idea of a firs take being fresh to the maximum of human abilities : by making the musicians learn the music as fast as possible it remains as fresh and spontaneous as possible. Yet, there is no sight-reading.
That's beyond brilliant.
That’s an absolutely insane schedule especially with no written parts and such complex music. Crazy!!! Congrats on the Grammy. Well deserved for you and Snarky crew.
I mean if that doesn't get you one, what the hell does??
Your musical skills are obviously unquestionable but I must say, I'm also always impressed at how good you are at doing these videos!
I love the fast edits, just giving the bare essential so as not to make it too long but yet get the whole story. Congrats! 😉
Thank you. That was my goal. 🙏
I would watch an edit of this that is twice as long. Cheers Bob
Seconded!
Third-ed?
As a producer, the whole time I was thinking, damn this is sooo expensive haha
Thanks for sharing, Bob, that’s very generous.
I hope they make money because they are putting in so much effort and cash to make this thing.
Yep I wondered if Elon Musk was aboard or something. Amazing team effort though.
Absolutely crazy that you can learn and memorize all of that music in such a short period of time. It’s also unbelievable to me, that you can play all day without your embouchure breaking down at some point. Well done, I love the record!
their embouchure must hurt indeed. My lips hurt from watching this vlog
Love the part starting from 14:20 when they all start to exchange ideas, great insights into the rehearsing process
Thanks for stopping by UNF broski! We loved having you
Bob! Thank you so much for this! The wait was worth it. So emotional to revive those crazy and incredible weeks at Deep Ellum.
Thank you and everyone that made that happen! And congrats for the Grammy❤️ You guys deserve it!
Thank you, Pau 🙏 was great to meet and hang with you there.
Man, this is so unreal, thank you so much for those beautiful insights! It‘s simply mindboggling how you guys pull these things off! And to think that you even sneak moments in to make these video snippets within a schedule where shouldn‘t be any time. Fantastic vlog you did there, really appreciate it.
Me and my girlfriend were lucky to see you in Hamburg in October. We had the most incredible time and I was surprised you played the Lingus solo. That was amazing.
Thanks for all your effort and congrats to the Grammy!
Hey all. Just a quick note to SP (and Bob Reynolds) fans - if you can, go to the GroundUp Music Fest next year! I went for the first time this year, and it was a blast. Not only great music, but it has a small-festival atmosphere, elbow-to-elbow with your musical heroes who are in the audience with you watching the other bands. I had the great pleasure of meeting Bob (I'm the guy at the hot dog stand) and Mark Lettieri, both super nice, gracious, and fun to talk to. (Bob - your workshop was also terrific; I'm a terrible amateur musician, but still got quite a lot out of it (Monk triads over a Rosanna Purdy shuffle!)) It really exemplified what a great community this is.
So glad to hear it! Thank you, and thanks again for the hot dog 🤙
We all play music but man, there are levels to this, what you do and how you do it is absoloutely crazy. Keep making sick music
Thanks Bob, this is awesome! As a teacher it’s fantastic to see how hard you guys are working to make this happen - great message for aspiring young musicians!
Absolute, 100% pure focus from every single player. There are no shortcuts to executing at this level. This is so inspiring.
"Not having greens" basically describes my childhood growing up in Texas!
Such incredible musicians! Congratulations on the Grammy. I'm always amazed (and humbled) that you take the time to capture and share such marvelous moments. It's truly inspiring. Thank you, Bob!
🙏 thanks, Orlando
Great video, All that devotion & effort over such a short time, to produce a brilliant album. Terrific solo on "Bet" Congratulations.
Thanks!
5:59 The audience all singing your solo is a sign you're onto a great thing 👌
This video captures the hard work that goes into a show/recording like nothing I have ever seen. People only see what happens on the night but this is the real work...and this is next level of work and cramming
awesome seeing those UNF students vibing with you (: we got room for ya up at Western Washington Uni if you ever find yourself heading towards Seattle or Vancouver BC (;
OMG Bob, this video is amazing! The filming, the editing and the story telling are just on point. I know the amount of work that this takes, and it's crazy that you found the time to do it. Congrats!
Thank you, Jep! I know you do know ;) and thank YOU for your brilliant work making us look so good!
Pure gold, this. Being in a related field, I’ve seen what goes behind the scenes (albeit at a much smaller scale) and it’s absolutely insane how all of you pull this off! The new album sounds amazing, congratulations to all of you! Eagerly waiting for Snarky Puppy to come to India!
man, Bob: thanks for this and thanks again for your crazy great solos on the album^^
This was such an amazing video, you guys are all top notch musicians and that's why you make it happen!
It would be nice tho to know more in details about how you create the damn songs that fast tho lol.
As we musicians tends to have hard time just to make one song sometimes, it would be a valuable lesson.
Thanks!
The songs were composed by 12 different band members, over the course of months before. We just *learned* them all that fast. ;)
Hey Bob you could have definitely dug deeper into this and made a 2 hour doc! The late night - early morning dichotomy would have killed me after 2 cycles.... I am so intrigued as to how you ALL manage to not just survive, but maintain the top of your game whilst under that much physical and mental pressure.... Would you describe these as ideal conditions?! Or could there have been any other way?
16 new songs in 5 days it's crazy, I hear this album every single day, I love you guys
Thanks for sharing the journey!!! This beautiful to see a room full of geniuses without the ego figuring it out together!!!! How it’s supposed to be!!!
Crazy life you have, I hope this will be me one day. Keep it up you guys are insane!
geez, that is a packed schedule.. incredible profesionals, Bob you really are a legend!! Sax hero, no doubt!
Musicians of y'all's caliber singing Part Of Your World... ❤️❤️❤️
Doing all this AND setting up your phone to film yourself entering hotel rooms? That's next level 👍👍👍
What drewb5775 said! Could a volume 2 be in the works? (Please??)
I can’t imagine cramming all of that work into such a short time - wow!
Bob, what’s the module to the right of the Voco Loco?
I checked your website and there are no SP dates listed until mid-April. Are you not going to be on the Milwaukee/Chicago shows at the end of March? Bummer.
Thanks for posting this behind the scenes view!
it's a Timeline Delay by Strymon. I start up with Snarky April 13 in NYC
The struggle is ALWAYS real. Well done, brothas.
Love to confirm you are human! 🤟🏽😎🎶
Only 24 hours in a day to do all this. And video evidence shows Bob still finds the time to enter each hotel room twice.
Thank you for this Bob!
Your vlog always shows my all-time favourite band from such a beautiful and 'human' angle. These videos are just DRIPPING with so much inspiration and motivation!!
Much Love!💓
As a (former) horn player, I find this process fascinating, because I still assume that the experience of not having sheet music impacts the horn line more than anybody else -- since the non-solo portions have to be played as an ensemble, and have to be tight. This is true for everybody in a way, but more true for the horn players than anybody else, I assume.
It seems that the music was NEVER written down, which makes it harder to play initially, but easier to memorize. Because if you never get ON book, you never have to force yourself to get OFF book. Is that the reason for the lack of sheet music? Or is it just because it's easier when you're writing to not have to make any charts?
Also, the compressed schedule... is it really because of a genuine time crunch that you can't get the music weeks in advance? Or is it because you guys enjoy the grind of that week, and the satisfaction of knowing that it makes you all bad-asses in the studio, and you can take that bad-assery into any other studio session?
John: great questions and observations! You basically nailed it with your second paragraph. Perhaps I’ll do a follow up to this video and address some of these questions.
Bob, this is truly beautiful. I had a wonderful time at the Empire Central concert in Berlin last October.
I was genuinely touched by seeing both you and Michael at the merch booth right after the concert, but only managed to exchange a few words with him.
Thanks for sharing.
Bob great video. Thanks for sharing such an awesome video. I can't even imagine the stress to learn 16 song in short period of time, on top of that, you recorded so we could see what was happening. I'm listening the album now and the behind the scenes make a richer experience all together. Well done!
This is the highest level of musicianship. It’s just mind blowing how talented every member is. Inspiring commitment Bob. Oh, and your solo on Pineapple is perfection 🎷
This is really great, thanks for uploading! It's so mind-blowing that you can learn these intricate songs in such a short time, incredible. I'm just speechless.
Hi Bob! This whole process is amazing. I don’t know if you remember but you played with me last May when you came out the Mountain View (I was in jazz 2 at the time). I wanted to let you know how cool it was to be able to play alongside you and even though you were light years ahead of me, it was still a great learning opportunity!
This was very fascinating. I truly don’t understand how you guys pull this stuff together so quickly, yet sound like you’ve been working the tunes for months. Been playing for 40 years, and I have a huge amount of respect for what you guys accomplish.
This video has it all... Bob Reynolds admitting it was the most challenging musical experience of his life, never before seen BTS rehearsal footage, Disney show tunes sung in unison, lead up tour footage, rehearsal meditations in hotel rooms, Office Space, Chick-fil-a, ways sax players practice in hotel rooms (hint: stuff a hotel towel in the bell and play everything like Dexter Gordon playing pp), sleet in Dallas, killer Pineapple solo outtakes by Bob, wait... don't the files have a "notation view" so you don't have to transcribe by ear?? OMG, great musicians are really great finger snap-ers :-), even the greatest musicians walking the planet can sometimes lose track of the downbeat on ONE, Chris Bullock on piccolo on "Bet," haha horns sounding like a barbershop quartet on Portal (until it was spiced up), ummm... MASKS?? in Florida???, UNF and Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, chord changes clearly influenced by the Steely Dan tour, hearing raw MIDI demo tracks, Friday March 4 2022 back in Dallas, a world-class improvised solo on Pineapple on a recording that ultimately won a Grammy. Work hard, play hard, fly home to the fam :-)
The pressure of being the ONE GUY who doesn't have the part down would be a huge motivator, I'd assume. (I also bet I-75 is stoked to have its first album named after itself.)
Don´t stop doing this, Bob: letting us take part in what so many of us aspire to do- awesome!! Thank you for sharing.
Epic video! Like painting the Mona Lisa whilst climbing Everest. Really awesome.
My wife always brings up the fact that you set up your camera in the room before walking in with your stuff and it really ruins the illusion. 😂
I call ahead and hire people to do it☺️
If it looks easy it was difficult, and vice versa. Thanks so much for this glimpse behind the curtain. You guys are amazing.
Monumental work! Thank y’all for amazing music…. Lot’s of ❤❤❤❤and respect!
this is insanity omg
Wow… the levels to this!!! I like how everyone has their Macs and learning also by use of the sessions… Keep up the good work👊🏾🔥🔥
I'm a musician, and I can't believe the level you guys operate at!!! If someone had told me this was possible I would not have believed it!
Each successive breaks incredible new and exciting ground. And I love the fact that you don't spend 5 months, but rather 5 days making a record, and that you expose yourself to the live recording, understanding how important that vibe is. I have to say that the dedication and musicianship shows in every track on Empire Central. It's truly epic. Nice one Bob, thanks for sharing your experience of the whole thing... and for getting home to your son's game. P.s. I'm not at all surprised about your Grammy win... well deserved.
Thank you for making this. I'm exhausted from just looking at it. I just got the album and so far I love it. Long live Snarky Puppy!
This is so insane on so many levels! So good! Thanks for sharing your talent, passion and work ethic with the world!
Great video, thanks Bob! Love the fact that you left in a clip of you coming in early in rehearsals, shows you're human! I have a question - the Snarky Puppy band seemingly always learn all these songs off chart, with no visual prompts/aids to go by. Is there a distinct reason for this? Just thinking those 1am hotel room sheds might have been avoided if you could just read the chart the following morning? Thanks!
Oh, I'm extremely human! LoL mistakes abound. There's a very real and worthy reason for why we learn music this way. Perhaps a future video to address that.
@@bobreynolds awesome, I'd be super interested to find out, thanks and great video once again!
This is an excellent doc of the process!! I've always only seen the part of the process that takes place in the recording space, so seeing the rehearsal days before that was fascinating. Well done! Let's do another one soon, ya?
Thanks so much for this channel. I was always wondering how pro musicians manage to do what they're doing, and this video (and the whole channel) provides a lot of insights.
Wow! Wow! Wow! The takeaway is that the smoother and easier you guys make it sound, the harder you work! Not since the Earth, Wind & Fire horns have I heard anything quite so amazing. Add in the rest of the band and it just gets more and more incredible. What’s more, when the finished videos appear on TH-cam, you all seem to be enjoying yourselves so much without any of the obvious stress that this video shows goes into learning and rehearsing. The Grammy is long overdue in an age when so many musicians are simply reinventing stuff from the past. You are a truly original band. Keep on keepin’ on! Oh, and come back to London soon. ❤
What I wanna know is how y’all got the hotel to let you have a horn sectional at 11pm lol
😂
Not to mention the fact you play in Snarky Puppy *AND* you’re a loving father of young kids…well done, dad, well done
So the next time some pop diva whines it took them 2 years to make an album of 3 minute songs all based on repetitive beats and done on a laptop, tell them to STFU.
☺️
You mean youve been keeping this gold mine content for over a year!! 😅 Awesome insight into the behind the scenes and thanks for sharing!! It’s also good to see you return back to father duties at the end 😊
Wow! So much trust that everyone gets their parts. This is crazy!
great vid. love granada and deep ellum art co.. hate las colinas lol
If Snarky Puppy could get a collective PhD in performing arts, this album would be their dissertation paper.
Bob- when your memorizing all this music by ear in a short period of time, what is your thought process? Is it all auditory/muscle memory and/or how are your memorizing/analyzing form, changes, entrances, melody/harmony lines, etc?
It is the most organized music rehearsal I have ever seen.
Awesome video, amazing experience. Thank you for sharing!
OMG Bob, some of the scenes are deja vu BIG time back to my road days! Walking through road construction along some gloomy mid-western freeway looking for a fast food dinner, trying to practice in a hotel room without pissing off the other guests and stayin’ up late and gettin’ up early to make the bus load-in. Did you guys get docked $20 for being late? At least we had charts!
And that Texas cold - man do I remember that! I lived in Alaska before going to NTSU (NOT UNT) and when the North Texas winter ice and winds hit…man, it was like I’d never been that effing cold before!!
Nice ending with that one-base hit! Hmmm, sounds like a song title….;^)
Excellent!
my mom brought me to a steely dan concert last year, and i got so much more excited when i found out snarky puppy was opening. that concert was so sweet
Hi Bob! Thank you for showing us behind the scenes (or "before the scenes," perhaps) of making Empire Central. I had no idea that you guys had less than a week to learn the tunes before recording at Deep Ellum Art Company. This vlog and the EC album are absolutely inspiring and truly fantastic. Snarky Puppy really is my favorite band, and there's no one else with the same mastery of music that you all have together. And congratulations on the Grammy - it's a well-deserved win for the whole GroundUp team!
P.S. I've got a ticket to the Snarky Puppy show at the Beacon Theatre on April 13, and I cannot wait for that night! Looking forward to seeing you and your friends performing there at that legendary venue.
Thanks, Doug. See ya at the Beacon!
We need more vlogs!!!
Bob Gabriel aqui, esse vídeo me inspirou a estudar mais e mais, vejo q não estou estudando nada, Continue fazendo esse tipo de conteúdo. 🙌👏👏👏👏👍👍👍 Gostei muito 🙌🙌🙌