Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Music Galactics Funky Grooves Galactics Funky Grooves Author's Note: this paper received an A. Suddenly you stop. As you and your friend saunter down the block, you are unexpectedly controlled by an unseen force. A faint intent to defy this compulsion crosses your mind, but you deem any attempt to resist futile. Your hips start to shake, your feet strut, and your plans for the night go out the window. The thick clouds of jazz and funk seeping out of the nearby club fill your ears and heart with desire, and as suddenly as you stopped, you and your friend decide to enter and open your eyes to the band playing tonight, Galactic. Galactic, a modern jazz/funk group based in New Orleans, takes driving beats, fat-back bass, soulful organs, wah-wah guitars, gritty vocals, and cocky, assured horns into proven funky territory that is sure to please, lightening both the mood and the feet, in person and on disc. Galactic demonstrates a special chemistry in live performance and improvisation that makes them irresistible to their audience. After Galactic recorded their first album, Coolin’ Off, they hit the road with an important mission—to spread the music, which they have accomplished by touring almost non-stop since 1997. The band members’ personalities truly shine through as they play, and it appears as if they genuinely have fun performing, as evidenced by the many smiles and laughs they exchanged among themselves onstage. Galactic has proven to be similar to other groups famous for live improvisation, such as Phish, The Grateful Dead, and Widespread Panic in that they encourage recording of their shows. These recordings are freely traded and often highly sought after because of the rich quality of their performances and the infinite variety of their improvisations. For example, a saxophone solo on a particular song can be heard over and over again on their albums, but when saxophonist Ben Ellman plays live, he never does a song the same way twice, thereby causing interest in different versions played at different shows. Notwithstanding their immense talent, Galactic has remained accessible to their audience. As they began touring, Galactic endured a rocky start, at times playing before crowds of as few as fifty. And though, due largely to their original persistence, their shows routinely sell out now, they continue to be personable to fans, as I have found out myself. At a Galactic concert I attended recently, I noticed that the group reacted to the crowd, accepted requests, and was very courteous and friendly, even inviting me backstage, engaging in conversation, signing autographs, and posing for photos. Ellman gave my friend a harmonica he played during the concert, and drummer Stanton Moore bestowed upon me a pair of sticks he used that night, which I treasure to this day. Although Galactic is known for innovation and creativity, outside influences are apparent in their music. Galactic claims to have “picked up where The Meters left off,” and The Meters’ influence on them is evident on nearly every song. The group even includes old Meters tunes such as Africa and Tippi-toes in their live repertoire. Like Galactic, The Meters were also born of New Orleans, with its history of heavy rhythms, street performers, and raucous festivals, including the untamed Mardi Gras. The musical influences of New Orleans seem to be so pervasive that they “rub off on anyone with ears,” according to keyboardist Rich Vogel. In addition to The Meters’ influence on Galactic, the effect of earlier jazz legends Miles Davis, whose cool style can be heard on Honey Island, and Thelonious Monk, who actually wrote the melody of Green Chimneys, can be observed. Of course the driving force behind the music is its rhythm, which in the case of Galactic goes far beyond the typical 1, 2, 3, 4. While he can certainly lay down a basic, heavy backbeat, as demonstrated on the song Tighten Your Wig, Stanton Moore unabashedly shows on a regular basis that he is the fuel behind Galactic’s fire and innovation. He reveals his unique talent to perpetuate a driving beat through endless changes and complex progression on such tracks as Stanton Hits the Bottle and Chupacadabra. His personal innovations are evident on Mystery Tube, in which he uses a plastic tube, connected to the vent in his low tom, to orally change its pitch by sucking and blowing. Moore’s live solos border upon the unreal, and, more often than not, he garners more crowd interest than do the other group members combined at Galactic’s concerts. One of the most addicting elements in the music of Galactic is its use of the Hammond B3 organ. The B3’s sound, which ranges from a bare murmur to a primal wail, has been made famous by jazz artists such as Jimmy Smith, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Lou Donaldson, and also rock bands like Santana and Jimi Hendrix. There once was a time when the presence of the B3 was a bare necessity for any self-respecting band—you simply weren’t a real band without one. In recent years, however, the sound of the Hammond organ has been somewhat absent. But occasionally a well-trained keyboardist can be seen holding court at the console, clenching a two-handed chord and bringing the Hammond to a full-throated roar. Keyboardist Rich Vogel shows flex on such songs as Quiet Please, on which he breaks down the jazz with some slow, funky grooves and runs, and on Go-Go, which is trademarked by the lighthearted melody he keys. Vogel’s pokerfaced manner belies his musical wit and talent—at times he calmly plays a slow, simple riff, then suddenly and seamlessly rips into a series of wild jazz scales at just the right moment, leaving listeners breathless. His presence, in my opinion, is every bit as important to Galactic as is Moore’s. Vocals are a less important element of the group’s music, however, when present, they lend welcome lyricism to Galactic’s musical message. Galactic was actually on the verge of completing its first album without a singer, but after joining forces with Theryl “House Man” DeClouet, who is a contemporary of The Meters and twenty years the senior of the next-oldest member of the group, they began experimenting with his gritty soul. DeClouet’s age and race (he is black and the other members of Galactic are white) set him apart, but provide him a sort of wisdom onstage that gives him plausibility as a singer. However, the majority of Galactic’s songs are instrumental, and no less credible or enjoyable than their narrated counterparts. The “House Man” usually sings of overcoming obstacles and oppression, in such tracks as Start from Scratch, Change My Ways, and Something’s Wrong with This Picture. In the latter, he makes a poignant cry against the government’s mishandling of internal and foreign affairs. DeClouet makes the allusion that life might have been better as a sharecropper if, in fact, the U.S. government had ever come through on their unfulfilled promise to give forty acres of land and a mule to freed slaves during Reconstruction: There's something wrong with this picture. There's something wrong with this picture. And we come home with all these battle scars. Then you send money to every other place. Can someone tell me what's the special occasion? We stand in line just to feed our family, But we're the backbone of this whole country. Repaid everybody, but you played us for the fool, Give me my acres and give me my mule! The music of Galactic is widely appealing. With its beat, organ grooves, and especially its live presentation, I consider the stuff to extremely addictive. I played a number of songs by the group for several different people of different ages and backgrounds, and they all enjoyed the music. In fact, the most critical of the group admitted enjoying almost all of the songs she heard. One participant noted, “I would never think to listen to jazz, but all the music you played was really cool.” Another said that the music reminded her of Louis Armstrong, further evidence of the music’s original roots in classic jazz. The most shocking comment was from an avid fan of country music who said emphatically, “That’s damn good music!” Amen, brother! Bibliography: Not required Word Count: 1401
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