One of my favourite albums of all times, Voodoo (Wikipedia). I remember going to the record store in January of the year 2000, when it was just released. I only listened for about 30 seconds in total in the store and I knew I had to buy it and rush home to listen to it.
It didn't leave my cd player until the summer. It really shook me up. Or maybe I was just in a post-adolescent phase where everything was heavy - probably.... but I was obsessed with this album.
To me, it's transcendent music. Sounds and arrangements which go further than just notes. It sounds mysterious and magic. Sometimes minimalistic, always organic, as if everything was played effortlessly and super laidback... To many women he was sex symbol only, and maybe it was the only way to market him properly and get the music out. At the same time it distracted from his musical geniality and artistry but it created a much bigger audience with all the female attention than if it was marketed as a funk/jazz album. In the end, the music won, and I am happy for him that he's awarded with many Grammys and still continuing to create great music, even if it takes a while... Many rhythm sections were brought up with this particular album, trying to play live what D'Angelo and his band had done on this album. Shifting the beats, playing with the "time". Generations of singers have been influenced by his singing and songs, I know a few who are still stuck on D'Angelo only.. and it's hard not to. And I am always getting mad of the teacher-kind-of -persons who talk about D'Angelo's poor lyrics. First of all, he's a musician and producer, not a lyric writer. He needs lyrics to communicate the music to the majority of people who only react to music if it has vocals and lyrics in it.. To me, Voodoo is about the rhythm, chords, feel, sounds... and there are lyrics as well..
This is the title track called Dark Horse. Just as in the album version it features sax and piano solos. It's a pretty wild performance, matching today's start of the Chinese New Year: THE YEAR OF THE FIRE HORSE!Live at Bimhuis, we added a drum solo. Afterwards, I decided to seperate it from the song and post it as an extra video below. Why not in one video?Because the video would become very very long and experience shows that people will not stick around for longer that 6-7 minutes. Yoràn's free drum solo is actually really great and in this seperate video, the true drum lovers can watch and learn from his drum story telling. Sometimes people ask me; What are drummers doing in their solos? To give you an idea of what Yoràn is doing in his solo: He starts with a pattern, an idea. He keeps the pattern going and plays variations over it. Then he combines it with soloing over it with call and reponse phrases and slides in new patterns. Technically it's interesting because he demonstrates a lot of independence and speed, as well as dynamics and sound colours, while telling a story, which means in musical context that the solo has certain elements which can be recognized by the (trained) listener. Many people in the Western part of the world miss the melodic and harmonic context during a free drum solo. It's fair to say a free drum solo without any accompaniment is like an abstract painting. Within the given context you can hear and see what you can manage, depending on your own frame of reference and expectations. In the end, it's about: does it resonate with you? Because both, the painting and the free drum solo, they lack a clear subject (no lyrics, no recognizable image), both forms are highly subjective and open to the interpretation of the audience. They function as a conversation between the artist's feeling and the viewer's/listener's perception.But you also can listen to it with a pure analytical drum ear and try to follow the patterns and phrases. As a musician and human I (try to) do both :-) Enjoy!More info:Susanne Alt: sax, Matthijs Geerts and Ike van Bergen: keys, Thomas Pol: bass, Yoràn Vroom: drums, Helene Jank: percussion Performed at 16th of January 2026 at Bimhuis, Amsterdam, Recorded by Onno Prillwitz Filmed by Robert Glass and Albert Nooij. - One of my favourite albums of all times, Voodoo (Wikipedia). I remember going to the record store in January of the year 2000, when it was just released. I only listened for about 30 seconds in total in the store and I knew I had to buy it and rush home to listen to it. It didn't leave my cd player until the summer. It really shook me up. Or maybe I was just in a post-adolescent phase where everything was heavy - probably.... but I was obsessed with this album.To me, it's transcendent music. Sounds and arrangements which go further than just notes. It sounds mysterious and magic. Sometimes minimalistic, always organic, as if everything was played effortlessly and super laidback...To many women he was sex symbol only, and maybe it was the only way to market him properly and get the music out. At the same time it distracted from his musical geniality and artistry but it created a much bigger audience with all the female attention than if it was marketed as a funk/jazz album.In the end, the music won, and I am happy for him that he's awarded with many Grammys and still continuing to create great music, even if it takes a while... Many rhythm sections were brought up with this particular album, trying to play live what D'Angelo and his band had done on this album. Shifting the beats, playing with the time. Generations of singers have been influenced by his singing and songs, I know a few who are still stuck on D'Angelo only.. and it's hard not to. And I am always getting mad of the teacher-kind-of -persons who talk about D'Angelo's poor lyrics. First of all, he's a musician and producer, not a lyric writer. He needs lyrics to communicate the music to the majority of people who only react to music if it has vocals and lyrics in it.. To me, Voodoo is about the rhythm, chords, feel, sounds... and there are lyrics as well..
