Message 7/13
Date: 07-Mar-01 @ 05:46 PM -
RE: Horn arrangements
The guys I know certainly don't overintellectualize it. 7th chords don't hardly enter into it, and never major 7ths, usually the dominant variety. Major 7s and 9ths tend to get a little airy or jazzy or something for the rasta stuff. One of the shames about what's coming outta JA these days is everybody's replacing horns with rompler horn patches -- it's been that way for a while with the tours but you hear more and more of it on recordings. Except Burning Spear, he still brings along the whole section.
Anyway, these guys I mix live and record have your same setup -- trumpet and bone. Usually the vocalist whose song it is (there's 2 lead singers who trade off) gets the basic riddim figured out with the drum/bass/piano and the structure as far as verse/chorus/bridge/whatever. When the horns come in, if the vocalist has ideas for parts, he sings his idea at them. For the fills, swells and little things in the turnaround, he'll go "play Bah-dah Bop" and they'll harmonize that on the spot -- sometimes in unison, sometimes thirds. For hooks, they may spend a little more time on that working it out between themselves and do trickier little shit like suggesting a major-to-minor modulation, 6ths, 7th, but the melodic part has to stay intact. Almost like fanfares they'd play when the medieval king entered the court. A way of saying "Here comes the singer. He bad, he bad."
For good examples of the style, you have to go back to rootsier artists. Burning Spear, Culture, the Itals, Israel Vibration, etc.