Day 20
song: Mama
artist: Realistic Orchestra feat. Uriah Duffy & Carlos Caro
written, orchestrated and produced by Adam Theis
Personnel:
Uriah Duffy - electric bass solo
Carlos Caro - bongo, congas and timbale solos
Joel Behrman - trombone solo
Erik Jekabson - trumpet solo
Matt Nelson - tenor sax solo
Evan Francis - alto sax
Joe Cohen - alto sax
Sheldon Brown - tenor sax
Paul Hanson - Bassoon
Doug Rowan -bari sax
Dave Scott - lead trumpet
Mike Olmos - trumpet
Joel Ryan - trumpet
Adam Theis - trombone
Danny Grewen - trombone
Marc Bolin - bass trombone
Jon Monahan - guitar
Colin Hogan - keyboards
George Ban Weiss - upright bass
Eric Garland - drums
One of the many tunes I composed for Realistic Orchestra during our 8 year long Tuesday night Jazz Mafia residency where this group performed once a month. Having a regular outlet to try out new compositional ideas was an amazing opportunity to be a part of. I spent many sleepless nights working on these sort of overly-ambitious quirky songs knowing that a band with some of the best and most supportive musicians would all be there for our regular soundcheck/rehearsals to run all the new material that me and the other hell-bent composers would bring in. This is where I truly went to school for big band arranging(Sorry Sonoma State but you wouldn’t even let me into the jazz orchestra arranging class!).
The title “Mama” comes from one of the many inside jokes the band developed in it’s many years of playing shows and late night hangs...If a pretty lady walked into the club, you could often hear one of the guys in the band softly and kind of nerdily utter “Mama”...I guess in a way it’s the introverted jazz-guy version of “Hey baby, you lookin’ mighty fine tonight, what’s yo name!?” Of course, no attractive females were ever actually engaged with in our manner, as they couldn’t actually hear what we were even saying. Anyway, it made for a nice memorable title for the band, which is sometimes all you need to simply keep the songs from getting mixed up in a book of over 150 charts.
I usually don’t write songs with more than 1 or 2 solos in them but for some reason this one really led me in that direction. I didn’t start with a lead sheet or any sort of demo, I just sat down and started composing and orchestrating.This is an approach that I don not recommend for composers who’d like to maximize the use of their writing time! ...but sometimes it does yield interesting results (and really lonnnnnng tunes like this one). The trumpet solo/soli is a concept I heard used first by Gil Evans where you have a soloist shredding away and then out of nowhere they are playing an ensemble rhythm with the rest of their section , maybe doing some call and response with them...blurring the lines between improvised and composed is always fun for me and challenges these amazing musicians in new ways as well.
When we recorded this we intentionally left 2 sections open for features - one for my homie and friend of the band Uriah Duffy on Electric bass and another for our vibraphone player MNO who had relocated to France in 2005. For some reason the MNO solo didn’t end up happening, I think I wanted something a little more in your face - so I started to think of percussionists and one of the baddest dudes in the Bay (and Cuba where he’s from) came to mind: Carlos Caro. The addition of these two incredible performers puts this song over the top into one of my favorite collaborative tracks we’ve ever done. Uriah’s bass solo was recorded back in 2008 and I tracked Carlos just a few weeks ago here at the Compound as the final piece of the puzzle called Mama.
Oh and I guess I should say something about the “weird sounds” that happen right after the percussion solo. Actually, nah.
- Adam Theis 2/20/16
Recorded March 3rd, 2008 at 20th & Mission in SF by Chris Fletcher.
Produced by Adam Theis
Mixed and Mastered by Chris Fletcher.
©2016 Jazz Mafia Recordings
