Rhodes players

robbie1876

I want to start listening to some really good Rhodes or Wurlitzer players, but am struggling to find a full album's worth of good playing. I have bits and bobs of stuff scattered across various albums, but I'm looking for a 'solo' artist, with an album full of lots of tasty rhodes solos. Jazz or funk would be the sort of stuff I'm interested in.

Anybody got any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Robbie

Doctor J

Don't know any solo ones, but a few albums with good organ playing which spring to mind are

Mahavishnu Orchestra - The Inner Mounting Flame; Birds Of Fire; The Lost Trident Sessions (featuring Jan Hammer)

George Benson - It's Uptown; The George Benson Cookbook (featuring Lonnie Smith)

Anything by Herbie Hancock (the Headhunters album might be the place to start)

Anything by Booker T & The MG's

If you're feeling adventurous you could try some Weather Report albums, which feature Joe Zawinul (who also played with Miles Davis)

There's a fine organist by the name of Justin Carroll here in Dublin - see http://www.improvisedmusic.ie/

Also, The Charlatans first few albums have great Hammond playing.

I come from a more guitar/bass orientated interest, but I find with Jazz, you'll get one album which will lead you on to other artists and other groups. I think the Herbie Hancock one would be a good intro to it all.

robbie1876

Thanks for the reply, Doctor J.

I've listened to some weather report stuff before, it's incredible to listen to, especially the bass playing!

Everything else you suggested is pretty much new to me, so I'll start working on collecting those albums, thanks for the suggestions.

I've seen Justin Carroll play before, he is excellent. In fact he plays with the sax player from my band, Bronek Szalanski in his avant garde trio.

There are many fine recordings of solo hammond players out there, but it's trickier than I thought to find solo Rhodes players. The Herbie Hancock route seems like a good starting point.

Thanks again!

Robbie

Doctor J

Yeah, it was the bass playing (Jaco) that brought Weather Report to my attention (and players like Miroslav Vitous and Alphonso Jonson) and Joe Zawinul.

If you find any other good stuff let me know

robbie1876

How have I lasted all these years without Herbie? The dude is amazing on the Rhodes, exactly the sort of stuff I was looking for...

Thanks, DrJ

Doctor J

Yeah, been listening to it a lot since this thread went up. Tis great stuff

Earthhorse

I was actually in school with Justin. I remember one day we were talking about our weekends. He told me that he and his band had a gig (or else a rehearsal).

I didn't believe him cos the two of us were always joking around with each other.

Years later I pick up the Irish Times and there's the Justin Carroll Trio's album reviewed in the music section!

There was egg on my face that day I can tell you.

Doctor J

I went to school with his brother Roy, who's a handy guitarist. Mad as a brush, but an incredibly sound chap.

Earthhorse

Was that Tiernan's Dr. J?

I'm pretty sure Justin told me a story about his brother going on the hop one day in the music room behind the stage. He started playing the piano or something, got caught, and was punished with detention in one of the little courtyards for the day!

Doctor J

Nah, Queen Of Angels primary school and then repeating the leaving in Rathmines

Doctor J

Robbie, you might check out Return To Forever. Just listening to the Romantic Warrior album, it's got Chick Corea doing some nice stuff on a Rhodes and acoustic piano. Might not be as funk orientated as you'd like though?

robbie1876

Thanks, Dr J. I found the album on Djangos for $6.99, so it's on its way to me now! I also ordered a Mahavishnu Orchestra CD for good measure. I listened to some of their audio samples, it's full of nice Rhodes, a bit Weather Reporty in places.

[EDIT] - Just noticed your first suggestion in the first post was Mahivishnu Orchestra, thanks! I should have looked into this earlier!

Doctor J

Ahhhhh Mahavishnu Orchestra

The Inner Mounting Flame, Birds Of Fire & The Lost Trident Sessions just foooking blow me away every time. There's such incredible energy from them, especially Birds Of Fire. I'd be keen to hear what you think of them.

robbie1876

Yeah, Birds of Fire was the one I ordered. Can't wait, I've listened to the 30 second samples again, just to whet my appetite!

Doctor J

Did you get any more Herbie? Headhunter's all I have. I wanna get more but I'm not sure where to go next.

robbie1876

To be honest, most of my Herbie listening has been done on MusicMatch Jukebox. I just select him, and it plays tracks from random albums all night! And all in CD quality too, which is fantastic. I'm still deciding which albums I'll buy, he has rakes of them!

I'm edging towards Thrust or Man Child. I've heard all the tracks from both albums on MusicMatch, and they sound really slick to me.

I like his acoutisc piano stuff immensely, but it's his electric piano playing that really gets me going, so I'm going to buy his fusion stuff first, and the quartet and quintet stuff later on. Having said that, New Standard is a stunning album, and really stands out when a track from it comes on MusicMatch. I might just sneak that one into my next order....

Doctor J

Have you heard much Sly and the Family Stone?

robbie1876

Been listening to Sly and the Family Stone all day today. Have to say, it didn't really grab me like I thought it would. I've been listening to Tower of Power for years, and Sly seems to along the same lines as TOP, just not as funky in my opinion! Still, it was a very enjoyable morning's listen. Any other suggestions?

Thanks,

Robbie

Doctor J

Meh. We've reached the outer limits of my Rhoes playing Jazz funk knowledge, I'm pretty dry at this stage

Got Weather Report - Live And Unreleased... foooooookin A! Highly recommended.

Lactating Shark

Try In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew by Miles Davis for some fairly out there Rhodes playing.

For more recent stuff, Medeski Martin and Wood records have lots of funky keyboard parts too.

Have you recieved Birds of Fire yet? Its fantastic, though some days I prefer Visions of the Emerald Beyond, also by MO.

robbie1876

Hi Shark, welcome to the forums.

I've heard some tracks off Bitches Brew, and have subsequently ordered it, it sounds stunning. I haven't received Birds of Fire yet, any day now.....!

I'll check out that other stuff you mention. I'm ammassing quite a list of Rhodes based albums now, it'll take me a while to get them all, but I will!!

Other albums that caught my ear that I'll be ordering soon are:

Bob James - All around the Town (live)
Marc Cary - Rhodes Ahead vol.1
Jaco Pastorius - Jaco Pastorius
Azymuth - Cascades / Rapid Transit
Airto Moreira - Seeds on the Ground

I'll let you know what I make of them when they finally arrive!

Lactating Shark

Cheers.

The Jaco cd there is great, as is the first Return to Forever one, not big on the later stuff like Romantic Warrior, bit of a cheese fest.

So, I take it you play rhodes then do you? Do you play in a jazzy stylee? I've been looking to get into playing jazz for ages, I play guitar and its hard to find jazz heads to jam with.

robbie1876

Well, I'm trying to get more into Jazz playing, I've been playing various other styles for years, but not too much jazz. I don't really want to go down the traditional piano or organ jazz routes, so rhodes or wurlitzer playing is the way I'm trying to go. As you can see, I'm trying to listen to as much good Rhodes jazz playing as I can, and I'm getting improvisation lessons from a good friend of mine who is a top jazz (bass) player. Hopefully in a month or two I'll be up to doing some jazz standards gigs to get some experience, after that I'll be looking to do more Rhodes based fusion type stuff.

Have to say, I'm having a ball so far! Working my way through the Real Books using Rhodes and Wurli sounds is great fun. Can't wait to do some proper gigs with my killer Rhodes sounds!

ogy

favourite wurly moments in no particular order
ray charles doin shake your tail feather (blues brothers soundtrack)
the loop from where its at by beck
super furries stuff, loadsa lovely wurly
the band stuff like long black veil
the stuff that guy played on the let it be album particularly get back solos

ill be honest, this post was actually just an excuse to boast about the fact that i have a real fully working very sexy wurlitzer:)

robbie1876

ill be honest, this post was actually just an excuse to boast about the fact that i have a real fully working very sexy wurlitzer

I hate you so much.....



Fair play to you, do you ever gig with it? I'd love to hear it live. On an aside, about a third of the songs I play with New Colour Soul are on a Wurli sound (the rest are Rhodes or Hammond). I just feckin love Wurlitzers, you are so lucky!

ogy

havent gigged with it yet but maybe soon over the summer, its a heavy bugger!
are u ready to be really sick? I got 2 (count 'em) wurlitzers and a farfisa organ and a hohner clavinet(that was the only thing that didnt work) from an old lady who ran a music school and bought all that stuff when it came out, so she figured it was just old crap that was taking up space. So the total price for all these fantabulous devices? 50 quid! Also one of the wurlis has original legs/sustain pedal/music stand and even the original stool that came with it, the other had the original legs but not the other stuff. I sold the other one to a mate for 150 quid straight away so it was definitely one of the sweetest deals ever

Specky

ray charles doin shake your tail feather (blues brothers soundtrack)

If I remember correctly that was something like a Mark 3 Rhodes.

I had a Mark I Rhodes 88 stage piano for years, unlike the one in the Blues Brothers the action on mine WAS completely crap! The bottom octave rattled like mad but it had loads of character. It weighed about a million tons though and I just got completely fed up moving it around, so much so that I gave it away eventually to a friend of a friend who was playing keyboards with Dexy's Midnight Runners (this is a few years ago now).

In retrospect I should have either kept it or sold it but at the time I'd stopped using it and just wanted to get it out of my flat at the time.