Brubekujah

Stealing the 5/4 shuffle from Take Five and injecting it into Leonard Cohen: non-trivial.

Been playing with the idea for a couple days now, finally sat down and knocked it out as best I could this morning. What I lack in bone fide jazz chops I make up for with some kazoo in the left channel.

(Get Flash to see the track player.)
posted by cortex (23 comments total)

Want. to. listen. SO. BAD.

But I'm at work. :(
posted by ocherdraco at 12:34 PM on June 11

Swingin', Jesus.
posted by middleclasstool at 12:55 PM on June 11

Brilliant idea.
posted by andrewraff at 1:06 PM on June 11

Oh, yes.

This is such a great music challenge, and this cover is so cool.
posted by The World Famous at 1:10 PM on June 11

I don't know if you would feel "weird" about including your own song in the music podcast and if that would be a factor for you to leave it out, but just in case it is so, here is my vote: this has to be included in the next podcast. Brilliant idea indeed. Great execution and great way of putting challenge in challengehujah.
posted by micayetoca at 1:20 PM on June 11

This is sort of unforgivable, which music should be.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:46 PM on June 11 [5 favorites]

Bet it took five takes to nail this sucker - heh heh. Swingin' baby!!
posted by MajorDundee at 1:59 PM on June 11

Hey, really good.
posted by chococat at 2:45 PM on June 11

Love it. I've never heard either of the originals, but this makes me think I really should.
posted by InfidelZombie at 4:23 PM on June 11

Man, this is great. It must have been really tricky to figure out how to make the melody scan right.
posted by umbú at 4:29 PM on June 11

KAZOO!

Hotcha!
posted by ocherdraco at 4:50 PM on June 11

Interesting, I had tried the reverse, which hadn't worked so well
posted by rakish_yet_centered at 5:34 PM on June 11

It must have been really tricky to figure out how to make the melody scan right.

I feel like I should have done some more work on that, really; the piano is about what I had in mind and the guitar stuff more or less works, but the vocals I sort of hacked out in a few takes until it was Good Enough and left it at that. The harmonies are falling all over each other as a result—pushing at it longer to really work out some interesting phrasings that take advantage of the time change would have been nice. But I ran out of patience and wanted to get the thing done.
posted by cortex at 5:40 PM on June 11

kekeke
posted by xorry at 8:59 PM on June 11

Very nice, at first I felt like it should be a bit slower but as I got into it, and the listened again, I realised I was wrong. I like the chops just fine!
posted by Admira at 10:50 PM on June 11

That's a lot of fun. The melody could have fit better, but I sort of dig the tossed-together feeling from everything. (Especially the kazoo.)
posted by uncleozzy at 7:22 AM on June 12

Honestly, I think this is one of the awesomest things you've done. I love how you decided to cram all those words into the 4 and 5 of each measure. And that jazzy guitar is hott.
posted by ORthey at 7:44 AM on June 12

InfidelZombie - if you've never heard Brubeck's "Take Five" I highly recommend you check it out. It's on a classic album called "Time Out". Features one of the classiest, coolest sax players there ever was, a personal hero of mine called Paul Desmond - that's Mr Desmond to you and me..... His finest moments unfortunately aren't on this album though - one's a live take of an old standard called "Tangerine" and the other is a track called "The Duke" - also live (I think the latter might be included on one or two compilations).

Jeez, sorry about the proselytising......but I realy love this guy's playing.

Oh, and Brubeck's band at this period included the formidable Joe Morello in the traps - another giant of jazz in my opinion.
posted by MajorDundee at 12:15 PM on June 12

I *really* like this... the odd phrasing and 5/4 time works to give us a cover that isn't like everyone else's in this history of covering "Hallelujah"- that is, it's not just a standard mournful, wailing straight-up cover (such as ever your own hoarse cover a few days ago to kick this puppy off).

I'm surprised how much I'm liking this challenge, although I was thinking of submitting an entry- and now am thinking better of it. :)
posted by hincandenza at 6:06 PM on June 12

No fair! Go back to thinking worse of it. If I can post two, you can sure as heck post one, eh? Eh?
posted by cortex at 7:45 PM on June 12

That's really impressive! It works better than I would have thought, too. Well done, cortex!
posted by edlundart at 9:02 PM on June 12

This is even better if I imagine you playing the piano with your back to us, but you turn and look over your shoulder sometimes, grinning, and also you are wearing a bowler.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 2:44 AM on June 14 [2 favorites]

I've had this thing stuck in my head for three days now. Nice earworm, sir. I'm going to have to listen to all of "Time Out" just to purge it.
posted by middleclasstool at 12:19 PM on June 14