2. "saw Femi live couple of months ago. he looked MUCH older" In response to Reply # 0
than he looked in the shoki shoki era so was expecting the concert to be wack..... shit was fiyah and the songs on the new album sound promising (didn't like that africa charity album) all my nigerian friends tell me seun is better so i'll check some of his stuff
3. "This made me realize I need to revaluate Femi as a saxplayer" In response to Reply # 2
I think I'd heard signs of it before. Come to think of it when I saw him live he was blowing but I wasn't paying so much attention to it. But yeah thinking of him as on sax first may change my perception of him.
5. "Femi is serious about his musicianship." In response to Reply # 3
You can tell he works hard on his sax playing, and then he picked up keys and trumpet too and developed pretty fast on them as well. He's a much better sax player than his father.
But I guess where the criticism comes in is that his playing is a bit too "clean"... which is one of the reasons people tend to prefer Seun, because he plays more with that raw, rough-edged abandon Fela did. Femi seems inspired by a lot of players that we would today call "smooth jazz" (especially when he does that Kenny G-esque circular breathing) like Fela was more free jazz-influenced.
6. "i've been listening to a lot of fela lately" In response to Reply # 5
watching a lot of clips and such. and i'm coming off a heavy miles electric period. so i'm realizing there's some cross fertilization there which has yet gone unsaid.
thinking of femi as the sax and seun as the voice is good good. let's hope one day they figure that out in the studio.
femi definitely has more edge than kenny g, and circular breathing is no joke. especially if you're doing it and still hitting phrases. femi may be onto something.
a thought i had was a continueation of trane's aesthetic toward the instrument. fela was talented but he never had that. Seun is dope dope dope, but trapped in a shadow.
7. "I always made the Miles electric connection myself" In response to Reply # 6
though lately I've been more interested in exploring the influence of model Miles and Birth of the Cool Miles.
What influence Fela might have had on Miles is something I have not given a lot of thought to, but is certainly worth examining, especially as Miles saw fit to namecheck him in his autobio and Miles didn't just talk about nobody for no reason at all.
>thinking of femi as the sax and seun as the voice is good >good. let's hope one day they figure that out in the studio.
Yeah, but they're just too different artistically and philosophically... it would be nice if they were eventually able to form some sort of brother act, and it would be a significant move symbolically too... but I think it's unlikely.
>femi definitely has more edge than kenny g, and circular >breathing is no joke. especially if you're doing it and still >hitting phrases. femi may be onto something.
No doubt... I didn't want it to see like I was slighting the technical acuity necessary to play in that manner. Frankly, Kenny is a badass himself, though he committed long ago to being an easy listening pop musician.
>a thought i had was a continueation of trane's aesthetic >toward the instrument. fela was talented but he never had >that. Seun is dope dope dope, but trapped in a shadow.
Agree on both counts. Want to say a lot more about this but maybe when my hands are less full.
10. "Miles in 73 looks like Fela in 71, Fela in 78 looks like Miles in 73" In response to Reply # 7
>though lately I've been more interested in exploring the >influence of model Miles and Birth of the Cool Miles.
Assuming you're talking image here but say more.
>What influence Fela might have had on Miles is something I >have not given a lot of thought to, but is certainly worth >examining, especially as Miles saw fit to namecheck him in his >autobio and Miles didn't just talk about nobody for no reason >at all.
The more I think about it the clearer it becomes. If you start with In A Silent Way into Bitches Brew you have a really americanized free sound, but by Jack Johnson and forward there's something else brewing up. By 1974 he had kente patterns and full percussion sections. And the way he started managing musicians by that time was Fela-esque to a tee.
The question is when did Miles first encounter Fela.
Obviously Miles could have had influence from afar on Fela much earlier, and so again I'm wondering how you see that. But right before the end of Africa 70 he really had a true Miles-esque set up and look.
>Yeah, but they're just too different artistically and >philosophically... it would be nice if they were eventually >able to form some sort of brother act, and it would be a >significant move symbolically too... but I think it's >unlikely.
I won't give up hope, but that's really too bad. It's interesting that you can sort of see in the video that they are cool but not 'cool'. Seun felt obligated.
>>a thought i had was a continueation of trane's aesthetic >>toward the instrument. fela was talented but he never had >>that. Seun is dope dope dope, but trapped in a shadow. > >Agree on both counts. Want to say a lot more about this but >maybe when my hands are less full.
I wish Seun would follow the "African Problems" style a bit deeper, I think he could actually come up with something new and unique, but not retreading his pops. I do wonder if he leads the band really. Like really really. He'll of course be the figurehead but is it more their musical direction than his.
normal35762 Member since Oct 20th 2004 13246 posts
Thu Apr-04-13 06:11 PM
15. "re : in the video that they are cool but not 'cool'." In response to Reply # 10
yeah that is first thing i noticed. seun tries to give femi a hug and femi is like "nigga dont get no sweat on me." and the way he dipped so fast from the stage.
11. "interesting.....i thought his sax playing was his weakness" In response to Reply # 5
at least at the live show i mainly attributed it to his age and the activity level he maintained while on stage he had just arrived from nigeria (i assume under dressed) and it was FREEZING that day, iono if that's a suitable plea cop but yea lol
19. "he clocked 3+ minutes of a circular breathing note today" In response to Reply # 5
>(especially >when he does that Kenny G-esque circular breathing) like Fela >was more free jazz-influenced.
It was towards the beginning of the set and I think done at that time just to punctuate the fact that he could do it. But it took two minutes for the crowd to realize it. That shit kinda pissed me off. My daughter (of course) knows about circular breathing and got it pretty quick. We were like the only ones cheering him on at first and then folk around us started picking up on it.
He didn't pick the sax up agin for three more songs though and by then I had to step back and deal with the other two kids so couldn't really focus on the performance. And the sound was kinda shite. All to say I still need to see him some more because I didn't get a good few solos to judge.
It's funny because I was just talking to a friend the other day about jazz performance tricks... how there's always a level of showmanship until you pull a miles and turn your back to the crowd and even then...
13. "RE: So Femi and Seun *have* performed together" In response to Reply # 0
This is cool shit. I remember seeing an interview with Seun a couple of years ago and they asked him about playing with his brother and his response was something like "we aren't really close in age so we don't really have much in common or perform together". This is dope even with the bad quality sound.
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
The Lesson
