Overview of Dragonfly Taxi Recording Project
I love the Jimi Hendrix tune, “Spanish Castle Magic.” The opening lyrics are, “It’s very far away. It takes about a half and a day to get there, if we travel by my uh, dragon-fly…” I imagined what kind of a dragonfly would be carrying Jimi across the universe and, along with some rhythmic inspiration from Jimi’s tune, I wrote a tune called Dragonfly Taxi and it forms the basic inspiration for this collection of 9 or 10 tunes coming your way. They range from a super jazzy one drop based on the Bhagavad Gita, to a Hammond-organ-heavy reggae swinger about how playing the bass will solve all our problems, to a caustic attack on the corporate naming of public venue’s, and of course a sweet love song. I know it’s been a LONG time since I’ve updated the sounds below, but have no fear, a wholelotta work is being done on the project. I expect to release it Summer or Fall of 2012.
Here are a few excerpts:
1: Dragonfly Taxi!!
(no excerpt avail at this time)
2: Liquid Shiva (lyrics and vibe based on the Bhagavad Gita) Here’s an excerpt:
3: Dub Jumper (trippy and SLOW reggae original). Here’s an excerpt:
4: Sure (a rap tune I wrote years ago and dug out of the vaults.). Here’s an excerpt:
Musicians on the recording, so far,
– Sean Skeete – drumset
– Winston Maccow – bass
– Thaddeus Hogarth - guitar
– Maroghini – nayabinghi percussion
– Kudisan Kai – vocals
– Yaure Muniz – trumpet
– Scott Flynn – trombone
– Matt Langley – tenor sax
Dragonfly Taxi project update: Horns n more
During lulls between the Rebel Tumbao activities, and with Berklee on Winter break, I had some long hours in my studio available to work on Dragonfly Taxi tracking. I did a million and one keyboard tracks using the Nord Stage and the Moog Little Phatty (what a sound!!), but the main ‘ting was to get all the horn parts finished! I wanna thank my long time partner in musical happenings Matt Langley on tenor sax, the unstoppable and world touring Yaure Muniz (from Havana) on trumpet, and my one-time student (in the Berklee Marley ensemble) years ago turned quite the accomplished playa, Scott Flynn on trombone.
Nice job my brothers!!
Dragonfly Taxi recording back in the swing
It’s been a great summer and with the free time and nice vibe I’ve re-ignited my Dragonfly Taxi recording project. I’ve got 9 new tunes, mostly reggae, but with a couple of rock/rap numbers. I was fortunate enough to rally my friends, colleagues (and favorite reggae/groove playa’s in the area!) Winston Maccow (bass) and Sean Skeete (drums) to come to my studio for a long day of laying down the foundation grooves for the tunes. (That’s them in the pic.) We kicked ass and NAILED all 9 tunes in about 8 hours! Now I’m on an inspired roll building all the rest of the parts including plenty of guitar, horn, vocal, percussion and keyboard parts. A couple of days ago my bredren Maroghini came in and recorded some FINE nayabinghi (drum) parts and in a couple of days Thaddeus Hogarth is coming in to lay down the guitar parts. It’s gonna be a while before it’s all done but look out because in 2012 I’m going to be making up for lost time in terms of releasing new material as not only will this recording be released but the Rebel Tumbao recording will launch as well.
