From 1983! When the world still made more sense!



All that beautiful gear!

I have an interest in old synths too, so I've totally drooled over this Youtube before.

I think it's amazing how Herbie had always different playing styles for acoustic piano, electric piano, the clavinet and synths. Rather different techniques altogether, but it's always Herbie. He's apparently playing here a Rhodes Chroma, which was one of the last great big polysynths, the last synth ARP ever built and then later licensed to Rhodes. Seems to have been his main instrument too at the time judged by its placement in the studio. I would say that here when he is jamming his style is more of a mixture of different techniques - he's playing short notes much ike what you'd play on a clavinet, some chords like you'd play on a Rhodes electric piano and then throws in some 80s type of modulated synth clusters there too towards the end. It's fun to me just to follow his hands.

"So that's how he does it".

It's also worth noting that as rather unremarkable as the backing track is, he definitely makes it work just by playing improvised stuff on top of it. I wish his 80s records would have been a bit rawer in overall, more like this simple jam session is.

novabrkr said:

I felt the same way when I heard Larry Graham playing bass on Rock School... I like the space in these jam sessions... when the funk gets too layered with horns and other stuff, it doesn't sound very good to my ears...

Hah, I love that Larry Graham Rock School clip. At the end of it you'll just have to say to yourself "well, he's right".

novabrkr said:

yup. I could listen to these guys jamming all day...

I never get tired of this clip,,,,,and it has been posted here over a million times