Thanks for the info. I checked out two Utubes, Paris 1980 and I have to say that I did not think they got any kind of a groove going at all on Keep It Greasy or You Are What You Is. As I am not a drummer, maybe I am just not getting it, but it seemed like the drums and the bass never linked up at all. Maybe it was the bass player that was pulling things off kilter.
In You Are, they got it together a little bit around 0:54 and again @ 1:21 but by 1:34 it had all fallen apart. To much leading the beat, or bad drum micing, or more is less. Feel free to flame.
Walt
Actually Walt, they are getting quite a groove going on both.
You Are What Is - this IS a ska tune, which may be a groove you're not that familiar with. BD - four on the floor. Gtr - on all the "and's" and the chords, the bass and the vocals almost always syncopating the "1" by an 1/8th note - in other words lots of "& of 4" pushes. With the exception of a couple of slightly rushed fills (and that's being darn picky), that was pretty darn on the money.
Keep It Greasy - This was WAY beyond "pretty darn on the money". The groove here is basically syncopated 16th note funk but played "real fast" as us fusion guys so much like to do. And keep in mind, this version of Frank's band actually plays this stuff pretty "straight ahead" - the same charts during the Coliauta period would be far more challenging to listen to.
So no, they're playing it - you're just not hearing it.... and that's cool. This is complex stuff in a live setting - which always tends to be harder to sort out. Compared to the studio records always a much more compromised mix and often less clean performance. But even with that, it's there being played...
So if I would make some suggestions - back up the truck a bit listening-wise and build up to stuff like this. Like for You Are What You Is - check out some reggae, some ska, and be sure to digest all of the Police. I mean even just some Bob Marley and some Police will get you way into that kind of groove and those kind's of syncopations.
For Keep It Greasy - dig into Tower of Power, and then Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, assuming you've already digested the music of James Brown and pretty much everything on the Motown label.
Lots of listening, for sure - but that's how you put it together, just like everyone else. One album/CD at a time - devouring the ones you "really get" and build your hearing chops up to the ones you don't "get" yet.
Have fun,
dc
