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Friday Funk #13 – ‘Getten’ To Know You’ by Parliament
Friday Funk #13 – ‘Getten’ To Know You’ by Parliament
Friday Funk #13 – ‘Getten’ To Know You’ by Parliament
This edition of Friday Funk is dedicated to Michael Brecker, who would have turned 75 years old today.
With a sweeping discography, having played with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Frank Zappa, Michael Brecker was called “one of the most prolific session musicians in history”. In 1974 Brecker formed a jazz-funk group, Brecker Brothers, with his brother Randy.
When the Brecker Brothers hopped on the Mothership with George Clinton, they contributed to the peak of Parliament horns in the mid-1970s. Brecker’s first album with Parliament was 1975’s Mothership Connection. Clinton wrote in his memoir, “Bootsy [Collins] knew Fred Wesley from working with James Brown, and Fred brought in Maceo [Parker] and Michael and Randy Brecker […] It was just unbelievable what we could do with those guys added to what we already had.”
Clinton described Parliament’s following album, The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein as “a high point for how we used the horns. Fred and Bernie [Worrell] went wild with the horn arrangements on that album. They would do the same song: one would do half, and the other the other half. Bernie hated to do stock arrangements. I would tell him to do it artsy-fartsy, jazzy. Fred was going to be funky no matter what he was going to do, based on his training. That gave the whole project real color, a chromatic diversity.” (Despite this co-arranging, the liner notes credit either Worrell or Wesley for each track, with ‘Getten’ To Know You’ credited to Wesley.)
‘Getten’’ is an example of the ambiguous moods found on the album. While not having the swagger and joviality of Mothership, its instrumentation and lyrics (“A love like this / I never knew I could feel”) are both positive, but there are hints of more complicated feelings. Most of the song is based around minor chords. The chorus (“Baby, baby, I love you”) is upbeat, but when it comes around the second time contains tinges of sadness with Brecker’s bluesy squeals of saxophone.
Garry Shider, who wrote the song with Clinton, has a starring role on lead vocals. The lyrics were written for his wife and the conviction in his voice is clear when he sings, “Baby, I love you and the world that surrounds you.”
When Shider took on a singing role, there was a good chance that song would be top tier P-Funk. He more often took centre stage with Funkadelic, including on ‘Can You Get To That’, ‘Cosmic Slop’, ‘One Nation Under a Groove’ and ‘(Not Just) Knee Deep’.
The track exceeding 5 minutes means there’s space for a Brecker solo and a piano solo from Worrell. Brecker’s solo starts at around 3:13, after the first chorus. The section features a B major chord, unheard throughout the rest of the song, helping to give the solo a different feel. Some of Brecker’s phrases, such as at the start of his solo, begin on the One, and elsewhere he seems to glide away from the rest of the band, as at 3:32 when he begins a run just after the One.
Clones, despite containing a track titled ‘Everything Is On The One’, places less emphasis on the One than Mothership. Sometimes the One is used to relieve tension, as towards the end of the chorus – the horns have played a restless riff of short stabbed notes, and then the One comes in with “Baby, baby, I love you,” and there’s a couple of beats without horns. It has felt like we’re rising, being swept up with the horns’ bounciness, before we’re brought back down to Earth with the One.
With the Brecker brothers absent from 1978’s Motor-Booty Affair, and Worrell not co-writing as many tunes, that album’s horns are far less jazzy. It’s a brilliantly fun and funky record, but going from, say, ‘Getten’ To Know You’ to ‘Deep’, it’s noticeable how the Motor-Booty horns are more for the dance floor, absent of Brecker’s kaleidoscopic runs and phrases.
This edition of Friday Funk is dedicated to Michael Brecker, who would have turned 75 years old today.
With a sweeping discography, having played with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Frank Zappa, Michael Brecker was called “one of the most prolific session musicians in history”. In 1974 Brecker formed a jazz-funk group, Brecker Brothers, with his brother Randy.
When the Brecker Brothers hopped on the Mothership with George Clinton, they contributed to the peak of Parliament horns in the mid-1970s. Brecker’s first album with Parliament was 1975’s Mothership Connection. Clinton wrote in his memoir, “Bootsy [Collins] knew Fred Wesley from working with James Brown, and Fred brought in Maceo [Parker] and Michael and Randy Brecker […] It was just unbelievable what we could do with those guys added to what we already had.”
Clinton described Parliament’s following album, The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein as “a high point for how we used the horns. Fred and Bernie [Worrell] went wild with the horn arrangements on that album. They would do the same song: one would do half, and the other the other half. Bernie hated to do stock arrangements. I would tell him to do it artsy-fartsy, jazzy. Fred was going to be funky no matter what he was going to do, based on his training. That gave the whole project real color, a chromatic diversity.” (Despite this co-arranging, the liner notes credit either Worrell or Wesley for each track, with ‘Getten’ To Know You’ credited to Wesley.)
‘Getten’’ is an example of the ambiguous moods found on the album. While not having the swagger and joviality of Mothership, its instrumentation and lyrics (“A love like this / I never knew I could feel”) are both positive, but there are hints of more complicated feelings. Most of the song is based around minor chords. The chorus (“Baby, baby, I love you”) is upbeat, but when it comes around the second time contains tinges of sadness with Brecker’s bluesy squeals of saxophone.
Garry Shider, who wrote the song with Clinton, has a starring role on lead vocals. The lyrics were written for his wife and the conviction in his voice is clear when he sings, “Baby, I love you and the world that surrounds you.”
When Shider took on a singing role, there was a good chance that song would be top tier P-Funk. He more often took centre stage with Funkadelic, including on ‘Can You Get To That’, ‘Cosmic Slop’, ‘One Nation Under a Groove’ and ‘(Not Just) Knee Deep’.
The track exceeding 5 minutes means there’s space for a Brecker solo and a piano solo from Worrell. Brecker’s solo starts at around 3:13, after the first chorus. The section features a B major chord, unheard throughout the rest of the song, helping to give the solo a different feel. Some of Brecker’s phrases, such as at the start of his solo, begin on the One, and elsewhere he seems to glide away from the rest of the band, as at 3:32 when he begins a run just after the One.
Clones, despite containing a track titled ‘Everything Is On The One’, places less emphasis on the One than Mothership. Sometimes the One is used to relieve tension, as towards the end of the chorus – the horns have played a restless riff of short stabbed notes, and then the One comes in with “Baby, baby, I love you,” and there’s a couple of beats without horns. It has felt like we’re rising, being swept up with the horns’ bounciness, before we’re brought back down to Earth with the One.
With the Brecker brothers absent from 1978’s Motor-Booty Affair, and Worrell not co-writing as many tunes, that album’s horns are far less jazzy. It’s a brilliantly fun and funky record, but going from, say, ‘Getten’ To Know You’ to ‘Deep’, it’s noticeable how the Motor-Booty horns are more for the dance floor, absent of Brecker’s kaleidoscopic runs and phrases.
This edition of Friday Funk is dedicated to Michael Brecker, who would have turned 75 years old today.
With a sweeping discography, having played with everyone from Frank Sinatra to Frank Zappa, Michael Brecker was called “one of the most prolific session musicians in history”. In 1974 Brecker formed a jazz-funk group, Brecker Brothers, with his brother Randy.
When the Brecker Brothers hopped on the Mothership with George Clinton, they contributed to the peak of Parliament horns in the mid-1970s. Brecker’s first album with Parliament was 1975’s Mothership Connection. Clinton wrote in his memoir, “Bootsy [Collins] knew Fred Wesley from working with James Brown, and Fred brought in Maceo [Parker] and Michael and Randy Brecker […] It was just unbelievable what we could do with those guys added to what we already had.”
Clinton described Parliament’s following album, The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein as “a high point for how we used the horns. Fred and Bernie [Worrell] went wild with the horn arrangements on that album. They would do the same song: one would do half, and the other the other half. Bernie hated to do stock arrangements. I would tell him to do it artsy-fartsy, jazzy. Fred was going to be funky no matter what he was going to do, based on his training. That gave the whole project real color, a chromatic diversity.” (Despite this co-arranging, the liner notes credit either Worrell or Wesley for each track, with ‘Getten’ To Know You’ credited to Wesley.)
‘Getten’’ is an example of the ambiguous moods found on the album. While not having the swagger and joviality of Mothership, its instrumentation and lyrics (“A love like this / I never knew I could feel”) are both positive, but there are hints of more complicated feelings. Most of the song is based around minor chords. The chorus (“Baby, baby, I love you”) is upbeat, but when it comes around the second time contains tinges of sadness with Brecker’s bluesy squeals of saxophone.
Garry Shider, who wrote the song with Clinton, has a starring role on lead vocals. The lyrics were written for his wife and the conviction in his voice is clear when he sings, “Baby, I love you and the world that surrounds you.”
When Shider took on a singing role, there was a good chance that song would be top tier P-Funk. He more often took centre stage with Funkadelic, including on ‘Can You Get To That’, ‘Cosmic Slop’, ‘One Nation Under a Groove’ and ‘(Not Just) Knee Deep’.
The track exceeding 5 minutes means there’s space for a Brecker solo and a piano solo from Worrell. Brecker’s solo starts at around 3:13, after the first chorus. The section features a B major chord, unheard throughout the rest of the song, helping to give the solo a different feel. Some of Brecker’s phrases, such as at the start of his solo, begin on the One, and elsewhere he seems to glide away from the rest of the band, as at 3:32 when he begins a run just after the One.
Clones, despite containing a track titled ‘Everything Is On The One’, places less emphasis on the One than Mothership. Sometimes the One is used to relieve tension, as towards the end of the chorus – the horns have played a restless riff of short stabbed notes, and then the One comes in with “Baby, baby, I love you,” and there’s a couple of beats without horns. It has felt like we’re rising, being swept up with the horns’ bounciness, before we’re brought back down to Earth with the One.
With the Brecker brothers absent from 1978’s Motor-Booty Affair, and Worrell not co-writing as many tunes, that album’s horns are far less jazzy. It’s a brilliantly fun and funky record, but going from, say, ‘Getten’ To Know You’ to ‘Deep’, it’s noticeable how the Motor-Booty horns are more for the dance floor, absent of Brecker’s kaleidoscopic runs and phrases.