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Around 2016, I stumbled upon the remix of “Anthem,” a song by J Dilla featuring fellow motor city rap duo, Frank & Dank. The remix, produced by Cookin Soul – a somewhat enigmatic yet ultra-prolific producer from Valencia – stopped me cold in my tracks. At the time, I hadn’t heard the original, but as an NYC native with a deep love for hip hop’s so-called Golden Era, a huge part of the culture has always been the remixes, which at times could surpass their original versions. Think Clark Kent’s remix of Junior Mafia’s “Players Anthem,” Da Beatminerz version of Black Moon’s “I Got Cha Opin,” The Fugees’s “Nappy Heads” remix, or Rashad Smith’s magnum opus of a reinterpretation of The Notorious B.I.G.’s “One More Chance.” Alternately, some remixes would leave the track largely intact but include new verses or collaborations –let’s circle back to DJ Clark Kent, adding his 1989 remix of Troop’s “Spread My Wings” to the conversation, Mobb Deep’s “Quiet Storm” featuring Lil Kim or Craig Mack’s “Flava In Your Ear,” which remains one of the greatest ensemble remixes ever. So, when I heard the reworked “Anthem,” for the first time, it harked to a special time and place.
The remix has many roles. From a business perspective, they are sales generators. The more versions of a song, the more money is made. Or maybe an entity is breaking a new artist via a feature on a remix. Another is social function: creating different backdrops for a song allows the it to serve various functions in our lives – club mixes, dub mixes, genre bending/blending mixes. In this way, the remix pulls on certain emotions or moods, creatively servicing the human experience and our human needs. There are many other purposes a remix can fulfill, but you get the idea. Ultimately, the remix is a form of magic. It’s taking something established and shapeshifting it through the producer’s individual lens. For the listener, it allows us to expand on a theme in ways that affords us the opportunity to tap into different parts of ourselves – both the producer and the listener benefit from undergoing a sort of transformation.
It goes without saying that this process is an enormous feat when we are talking about remixing the work of J Dilla, a groundbreaking, almost unparalleled producer. And for the record, this isn’t a post about Dilla being outdone in any capacity. Instead, in the case of “Anthem,” it becomes more of a personal preference for me. Allow me to explain: The original “Anthem” aesthetically dabbles in a specific moment in hip hop that I particularly disliked – the Bollywood music meets hip hop period of the early 2000s just really wasn’t my jam at all. I absolutely enjoy Indian music: the tonal elements, the tabla, the sitar, the rhythms… all of it. And I love many of the ways it’s been integrated into many other genres. But the mash up with hip hop… just didn’t do it for me (With the exception of Erick Sermon and Redman’s “React,” and maybe Jay and UGK’s “Big Pimpin’.”) That said, Dilla’s snapshot of said era via “Anthem” is the best of all of it, as far as I’m concerned.
But enter the remix. It’s deliciously soulful – almost Blaxploitation in its presentation with this addictively melodic horn line interspersed every few bars. The fat muted kick drum, the snaps and bells on the snare, the warmth and lushness of the keyboards, guitar, drum and bass. What the hell was this? I began my mission of trying to find the sample, for starters.
I called musician friends and played it for them over the phone. Their ears straining, they’d asked me to play it again as I repositioned my phone around the speakers. I asked anyone who I thought may have an idea, from musicians to jazz enthusiasts to music nerds of all sorts; I tried singing the melody into SoundHound… all to no avail. That was until 2020. While locked down (and stocking up on reasonable amounts of toilet paper), my son began his deep dive journey into J Dilla. A child with an impeccable musical ear, he is also the quickest study I know, and he’d gained somewhat of an encyclopedic knowledge of J Dilla in very little time. I would need to wait until this chapter in my son’s life as a budding producer and Dilla historian, before finding the answer to the question that was gnawing at me for the last four years.
As he played it in the background, I asked him if he happened to know where the sample came from. He didn’t. But about 15 minutes later, he did.
“I found it,” he said.
“WHAT?!?!? Are you serious?”
“Yup,” he dryly reassured. “I’ll send it to you.”
The sample came from an album titled 900 Shares of the Blues by pianist-keyboardist Mike Longo. The 1975 release features drummer Mickey Roker; Joe Farrell on saxophone and flute; guitarist George Davis, Randy Brecker on trumpet and flugelhorn; Longo on keyboards and piano; and the most recorded and sampled bassist of all time, Ron Carter. While I’m pretty well versed in all of the sidemen on this album (minus guitarist Davis), its frontman eluded me. Who was Mike Longo? And why hadn’t I heard of him — even in passing — up until this point? His musical associates were certainly substantial – he filled the role of Dizzy Gillespie’s music director for almost a decade; he was accompanist to some of the great vocalists like Nancy Wilson, Gloria Lynne and Joe Williams. Before that, shortly after moving from his hometown of Cincinnati to New York to pursue a music career, he moved to Toronto to study with none other than Oscar Peterson. Not to mention, he was the founder of The New York State of the Art Jazz Ensemble, which regularly performed at the Baha’i Center in Greenwich Village in the John Birks Gillespie Auditorium which Longo had a hand in naming after his legendary mentor.
As was the case of many jazz musicians in the 1970s, Longo’s music was heavily funk-oriented during this era. Overlapping with Ron Carter’s CTI period, Longo benefitted from capturing Carter on electric bass, something that would take place only over a small yet mighty window of time before Carter would abandon the instrument almost altogether. 900 Shares of the Blues is a wonderful project. It’s a short album, clocking in at under 38 minutes and covering six tracks. As a Longo laywoman, what’s evident by the end of the album is that Longo has a penchant for irresistible melodies: its opener – the title track – is a grooving, funked out, mid-tempo blues. I’ve heard hundreds of blues-es, so it kind of takes something special for one to stand out for me, and this one does, thanks to a super hip melody and a delectable chemistry between musicians. Roker and Carter are perfect together throughout, as they set the tone on “Like a Thief in the Night,” picking up the pace of the album with a short but affecting solo from Farrell. The song then takes another direction establishing a gorgeous theme thereafter, adding a lift to the bright tune as it chugs along like a soulful locomotive.
“Ocean of His Might” is the gem the Cookin Soul team dug up for their “Anthem” remix. Carter’s bass line is seductive, and the song rides on a sultry B-flat groove before falling into a rapturous chromatic cascade with a sweet melody floating atop executed by Brecker and Farrell, who somehow make a two-part harmony almost sound like four.
“Magic Number” detours for the first time from the established funk precedent. Here, the band lets loose on a fiery hard bop style tune, with Carter switching to upright for the occasion. Longo makes a switch of his own, opting for acoustic piano, finding this moment to be the appropriate time to stretch just a bit, soloing over the Trane-like changes. “Summer’s Gone” is a blue number, and the only ballad. The lengthiest song on the album, it’s almost meditative in function, before going out on a high note with “El Moodo Grande,” a feel-good pasodoble inflected, afro-latin number.
Since 2020, 900 Shares of the Blues has become a precious addition to my music library. It’s a well thought out, gorgeously executed album that stands strong — and even out — among the multitudes of funk-soul-jazz outputs of the 70s. Unlike some one-off or two-off collaborations, it’s refreshingly cohesive and sonically intentional. The compositions are super pretty – a testament to Longo’s pen, which I’m very grateful to now be familiar with, along with his playing. While on the subject, here Longo’s solos feel more like pads than center-stage moments. Like sprinkles of emotion. His right hand seems to be super low in the mix (perhaps purposely), as opposed to his comping, which is subtle still, but extremely efficacious. Listening to this album, it’s not particularly apparent whose record date it is, and it’s one of the things I love about it.
“Anthem” features one of my favorite flows from J Dilla, an under analyzed emcee in his own right, whose skill is understandably overshadowed by his eminence as a producer. With this Cookin Soul rework, I get to hear this dope performance from JD wrapped in a deeply soulful effervescence, thanks to their consistent ingenuity and choice sampling from an obscure album that brings great reward on its own.
As life would have it, by the time I’d familiarized myself with Mike Longo, I learned that he’d passed away just a few months prior, in March of 2020, succumbing to coronavirus at the age of 83.