Cow Bop's 'Too Hick For The Room' tries to ride jazz and country's thick line
) Soundtrack composer – guitarist Bruce Forman – tackled an ambitious new CD project with a traditionally difficult fusion in mind. Cow Bop’s “Too Hick For The Room” was officially released for public consumption June 7, and seeks to play around with the concepts and styles of Western swing and be-bop jazz.All 12 tracks have a decidedly Western swing, amplified by vocalist Pinto Pammy. Her voice is smooth-as-silk yet perky, with a subtle wink and a nod fitting for the occasion. The jazz, though, is used sparingly, is often overshadowed by the country, at times coming and going, with the exceptions played out in the fast-paced, beefy solos of “Besame Mucho,” “El Cumbanchero,” and “Chinatown,” where Bruce Forman produces some astounding, rousing true fusion fretwork.
These are the three main examples of Cow Bop’s matching and intermingling country for jazz, note for note. Otherwise, most of the rest of the songs sound just like highly tuned, razzed-up country, as if country borrowed the solo jam riffs from jazz but stayed firmly within its own overpowering confines.
Tricky, tricky, because country and jazz – for the layperson – are like oil and water. To play one up against the other can invite disaster, with the danger of everything disintegrating into satirical caricature. Cow Bop’s “Too Hick…” doesn’t quite go that far.
At times, the countrified air stagnates and lingers a little too long, like a grandmother’s Emeraude (unless you love country). “Cool Water” stays very kitchy-country, without a jazz relief in sight. Its redundant title refrain throughout is less poignant, more tedium. “It’s A Sin To Tell A Lie” again borrows liberally from the idea of jazz solos in the fiddling, but the overall impression hangs on to country. Pinto Pammy’s vocals here remain fixed in country as well. “Crazy” is just pure country, period, in a different, less evocative rendition from Patsy Cline’s original.
Trying to marry two very distinct, very polar opposite music genres such as country and jazz (and be-bop jazz at that) can be tricky, almost impossible to accomplish. What ends up happening is one genre (usually jazz) suffers from the attempt, while the other takes over completely. In “Too Hick…” the songs get lost in mostly country swing.
Amplified Reed Organs - News
All 12 tracks have a decidedly Western swing, amplified by vocalist Pinto Pammy. Her voice is smooth-as-silk yet perky, with a subtle wink and a nod fitting for the occasion. The jazz, though, is used sparingly, is often overshadowed by the country,
Not satisfied by the arsenal of acoustic piano, Hammond organ and Wurlitzer electric piano, he is well known for employing the effects of amplification, circuit bent toys, Mellotron and Optigan. The New Jersey native began piano studies at age 7 and
Did Hammonds ever have built-in Leslie speakers? - MusicPlayer Forums
Plenty of spinets and self-contained consoles starting around 1968 or so came with built-in Leslie modules (usually an 8" speaker with a foam rotor.) The T-200 and higher spinets were among the first, as well as the Phoenix solid-state spinet and the J-200 and higher spinets. The R-100 series had a Rotosonic drum Leslie unit built in, as did the Concorde and Elegante. The internal Leslie units aren't as good-sounding as the external cabinets, though the Rotosonic drum units in the R-100, Concorde, and Elegante could sound quite rich for theatrical music. It was almost the equivalent of a Leslie 700 cabinet built into the console. Most organs equipped with internal Leslies could also control an external cabinet with no additional kits provided the correct cabinets were chosen for the organ (e.g. the Concorde was designed to connect to the 700 and 710 cabinets.) Incidentally, the first collaboration between Hammond and Leslie after the anti-Leslie taboo was consigned to the dustbin was the custom cabinet for the X-77 console. Alan Young from Hammond (the man responsible for the Type 4 spring reverb tank we all know and love, as well as the father of the A-100 series) worked with Don Leslie on that speaker. Wurlitzer came up with their own version of an internal rotating speaker for their spinet and console organs. They actually mounted two opposing speakers (around 5" diameter as I recall) to a cylinder, and that cylinder was mounted to an arm with a counterweight on the other end. The center of the arm was attached to a motor. So the speakers themselves rotated. Didn't sound that great but was an interesting ripoff of the Leslie unit. They also made a standalone tone cabinet with that unit. Spectratone, they called it. Many years prior they had made a speaker-firing-into-a-shallow-scoop rotary speaker for their amplified reed organs, it looked similar to a tallboy Leslie. They're quite rare, I've never seen one in the flesh. The old Wurlitzer amplified-reed organs sound amazingly pipelike, especially given the vintage.
Amplified Reed Organs - Bookshelf
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Zwei Mannborgs Reed Organ Duo: Napoleon - YouTube
More Finnish Folk Music with 2 reed organs. Napoleon march. Played in wedding s but also heard couple of times played in funerals as a final song.