RIP Bernie Worrell
- Thread starter rsadasiv
- Start date
Gary Blanchard
beloved, local musician
A monster talent who will be missed.
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
Really nice obit from the NY Times's Jon Pareles, a critic who knows his shit:
www.nytimes.com/2016/06/25/arts/music/bernie-worrell-whose-keyboards-left-an-imprint-on-funk-and-hip-hop-dies-at-72.html
His inventory of sounds was more like a rain forest than a library. His synthesizer lines whistled, gurgled, cackled, squished, snickered and belched; their pitches might wriggle, and their tones could bristle and bite. There was humor in them, along with ingenuity, defiance, raunch and joy.
Mr. Worrell’s best-known innovation was the bass line he played on three connected Minimoog synthesizers in the 1978 Parliament song “Flash Light.” It had a descending and ascending chromatic line with a meaty tone and a certain swagger, an approach that would spread through funk, new wave, electro, synth-pop and countless other iterations. Many Parliament recordings from the 1970s, like “Aqua Boogie,” another song that would be widely sampled in hip-hop, revolve around the multiple, constantly surprising keyboard parts Mr. Worrell devised.
He played, and played with, whatever technology was available to him at the time: piano, electric piano, clavinet, Hammond organ, as well as Moog, ARP, Yamaha and Prophet synthesizers. What he brought to every piece of technology was a human element: quirks and syncopations, complex structures and outbursts of anarchy. His oft-repeated advice to young musicians was “hands on” — to keep the human touch in music rather than depending on machines.
www.nytimes.com/2016/06/25/arts/music/bernie-worrell-whose-keyboards-left-an-imprint-on-funk-and-hip-hop-dies-at-72.html
His inventory of sounds was more like a rain forest than a library. His synthesizer lines whistled, gurgled, cackled, squished, snickered and belched; their pitches might wriggle, and their tones could bristle and bite. There was humor in them, along with ingenuity, defiance, raunch and joy.
Mr. Worrell’s best-known innovation was the bass line he played on three connected Minimoog synthesizers in the 1978 Parliament song “Flash Light.” It had a descending and ascending chromatic line with a meaty tone and a certain swagger, an approach that would spread through funk, new wave, electro, synth-pop and countless other iterations. Many Parliament recordings from the 1970s, like “Aqua Boogie,” another song that would be widely sampled in hip-hop, revolve around the multiple, constantly surprising keyboard parts Mr. Worrell devised.
He played, and played with, whatever technology was available to him at the time: piano, electric piano, clavinet, Hammond organ, as well as Moog, ARP, Yamaha and Prophet synthesizers. What he brought to every piece of technology was a human element: quirks and syncopations, complex structures and outbursts of anarchy. His oft-repeated advice to young musicians was “hands on” — to keep the human touch in music rather than depending on machines.
sunvalleylaw
Yep.
Rest in peace.
