Music Banter - View Single Post - Reworking Musical History: Jazz, Soul, and Hip Hop Samples

music_phantom13 · 05-05-2014, 02:13 PM

Thanks for the encouragement guys! I'm honestly surprised at the interest. One quick question for mb - how do people here feel about sampling? I've found very mixed opinions about it where some feel that it shows a lack of creativity

Anyways, to begin I'll start with the song that really kicked off this musical journey of mine.

Nujabes - Aurarian Dance

Laurindo Almeida - The Lamp is Low

You might recognize the Nujabes song, through his music or Samurai Champloo, and this is one of my favorites by him. I don't think Laurindo Almeida is quite as popular, and almost certainly not here on mb. I was learning to play Aurarian Dance on the guitar years back, and I started to wonder where he was getting the melody from so I tracked down the sample. I still love Nujabes and his chill sounds, but I discovered that he pretty blatantly rips off a lot of stuff for his music. On the plus side, if you like his music then tracking down the samples will definitely introduce you to some new music that you already know you'll enjoy.

I absolutely love both of these songs. While Nujabes' is very similar, his relatively simple beats drive the song forward without affecting the very relaxed and upbeat feel of the original. I found that he is quite skilled as well at blending the beats together - you can still hear the percussion from The Lamp is Low, but he puts a snare, hi hat, and kick overtop that matches up perfectly. As someone who enjoys messing around with sampling and making beats myself (though I'm quite bad) I can really appreciate the difficulty of capturing that vibe just right. Also the slightly slower tempo and repetitive looping lends Aurarian Dance a bit more of a calm relaxing vibe. Laurindo Almeida's cover of The Lamp is Low has a lot more of the orchestration occasionally heard in Aurarian Dance, and I find that it gives his song a much more dreamy feel.

His song is a cover of the original, which I think was just a popular song written by a French guy in the 1930s . I'm not sure if The Lamp is Low would be considered a jazz standard, but it's been covered by a lot of great musicians who put some interesting takes on it; I don't want to fill this page with too many youtube videos and some I can't find online, but Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald have good versions, as well as the Harry James Orchestra aka the band that kicked off Frank Sinatra's musical career.

05-05-2014, 02:13 PM	#5 (permalink)
music_phantom13 Music Addict Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Posts: 942	Thanks for the encouragement guys! I'm honestly surprised at the interest. One quick question for mb - how do people here feel about sampling? I've found very mixed opinions about it where some feel that it shows a lack of creativity Anyways, to begin I'll start with the song that really kicked off this musical journey of mine. Nujabes - Aurarian Dance Laurindo Almeida - The Lamp is Low You might recognize the Nujabes song, through his music or Samurai Champloo, and this is one of my favorites by him. I don't think Laurindo Almeida is quite as popular, and almost certainly not here on mb. I was learning to play Aurarian Dance on the guitar years back, and I started to wonder where he was getting the melody from so I tracked down the sample. I still love Nujabes and his chill sounds, but I discovered that he pretty blatantly rips off a lot of stuff for his music. On the plus side, if you like his music then tracking down the samples will definitely introduce you to some new music that you already know you'll enjoy. I absolutely love both of these songs. While Nujabes' is very similar, his relatively simple beats drive the song forward without affecting the very relaxed and upbeat feel of the original. I found that he is quite skilled as well at blending the beats together - you can still hear the percussion from The Lamp is Low, but he puts a snare, hi hat, and kick overtop that matches up perfectly. As someone who enjoys messing around with sampling and making beats myself (though I'm quite bad) I can really appreciate the difficulty of capturing that vibe just right. Also the slightly slower tempo and repetitive looping lends Aurarian Dance a bit more of a calm relaxing vibe. Laurindo Almeida's cover of The Lamp is Low has a lot more of the orchestration occasionally heard in Aurarian Dance, and I find that it gives his song a much more dreamy feel. His song is a cover of the original, which I think was just a popular song written by a French guy in the 1930s . I'm not sure if The Lamp is Low would be considered a jazz standard, but it's been covered by a lot of great musicians who put some interesting takes on it; I don't want to fill this page with too many youtube videos and some I can't find online, but Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald have good versions, as well as the Harry James Orchestra aka the band that kicked off Frank Sinatra's musical career.