The Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown – Volume 3
What happens when you bring together a cartload of musicians and simply let them jam together? And take that cartload quite literally, because for “Volume 3” of The Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown, no fewer than 225 musicians from 180 bands were brought together. Over two decades, more than a hundred hours of material were collected for this ambitious project, resulting in a steaming, stomping, biting, seething, merciless, ultimate funk-rock record that punches through everything and everyone. No: there’s not a single letter exaggerated in the previous sentence.
Red Hot Chili Peppers. Earth, Wind and Fire. Parliament Funcadelic. Living Colour. Fishbone. Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band. It all goes into the blender that is The Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown, conceived by American producer John Heintz who works closely with musicians from the latter band for this project. The goal was to capture the energy from typically one-off jam sessions, because such sessions often produce ‘incredibly good and genre-transcending music’, although funk is indeed the most important ingredient in the Getdown, combined with a muddy fat production that pulls out all the stops. Thick horn sections, rumbling B3 Hammonds, funky and sometimes sharply wailing guitars on immovable rhythms.
Somewhere this reminds one of GRP Super Live, the supergroup assembled around Dave Grusin with luminaries Chick Corea, Lee Ritenour, Tom Scott and vocalist Diane Schuur. The group was brought together in the eighties as promotion for the American GRP label that primarily released jazz, Latin and fusion. Grusin, Ritenour and certainly Corea were already well-established artists and big names by then, but with GRP Super Live they still made a few unique records whereby they demonstrated that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. And that applies to The Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown as well. But squared.
Identifying highlights on such a record is actually completely impossible and does no justice to other pieces. Take just the opening, “Yoda Mode”, with a line-up to lick your fingers at. Chad Smith (RHCP), Hadrien Feraud (Chick Corea), Rusian Sirota (Stanley Clarke), Erick Walls (Beyoncé) and Philip Lassiter (Prince). There you already have a formation you can tip your hat to, and on top of that come the power vocals of Maiya Sykes.
If we must nonetheless identify a few pieces that make the record nothing short of incomparable, then “Birds of a Feather” is a good example. This track has everything: a deep, raw bass riff (played by Norwood Fisher from Fishbone) that sets everything in motion, the Hammond carpet, funky guitars including a delicious shred solo, partly in unison with the massive horn section consisting of trombonist Derrick Johnson (Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band), saxophonist Greg Hollowel (Asheville Horns) and trumpeter Alex Bradley (Empire Strikes Back).
And then we still have “Crispy Chicken” and “Super Galactic” to come. On “Crispy Chicken”, again with Fisher on bass, a leading role is reserved for Big Sam Williams (Big Sam’s Funky Nation) and one of the most beautiful trombone solos since Pankow’s live performances of Chicago’s “Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon”. The number transitions almost seamlessly into “Super Galactic”, a cross-over between funk and hip-hop, including rap from Justin Poree. Rest points? Nope. Not on this record. It races, blasts, surges and overwhelms you without even a second’s breathing space.
All tracks originated from jam sessions, with vocals added to some tracks later. For this reason, a number of songs can also be found as instrumentals on the record, a standard recipe on Getdown albums. Only then do you really hear how versatile the musicians who participate are, because many are really far outside their comfort zone. Take guitarist Erick Walls who plays in Beyoncé’s backing band and now gets to ‘go wild’ in fat funk-rock. The same applies to colleague Tim Stewart, Lady Gaga’s regular guitarist. Or bassist Josh Paul from Suicidal Tendencies on “Joy Rider”, where we also hear Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboardist Peter Keys. “Joy Rider” is thus quite a different number: more rock with a constant, driving bass, which you might expect with Josh Paul plucking at the four thick strings of his Warwicks – although Paul briefly played with Fishbone for a time.
The Getdown’s material won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but there’s absolutely no evidence of that. On the contrary: you hear an occasional formation that is liberated from conventions, patterns and other fixed lines and audibly enjoys every note it plays. Notes that make you wish you could have been there when the compositions took shape in those hours-long jam sessions. This record is going on repeat for quite some time with your reviewer. (9/10) (Getdown)
