Thursday 9 February 2012

joi - cravin' (piano dub)

this one i got acquainted with through the intarwebs i believe, i didn't know who joi was nor this song but i was given a heads up somewhere that it was a really deep house track with killer piano work. a little while after i found out that it was joe claussell behind the remix and everything made sense.

the original is a japanese sort of lounge and sort of m.o.r. ballad but it's a great track and the track came out in '00. a few years after joe claussell got his hands on it and did what almost only he can do, create beautiful music. he utilised the best parts of the original and reshaped it into a lenthy deep house gem filled with atmosphere, great musical features and all the usual trimmings.

his original remix does the song justice and then goes into an piano session which is also in line with the structure of original, but it goes on for longer. then it does go back to the original song but that middle piano part is the highlight of this track. so for the piano dub claussell strips it all down and focuses on those ivories.

the one playing the keys is brian mitchell and he's one of the musicians that claussell hires on a usual basis and listening to this, you can hear why. he keeps within the motif of the original but does some wonderful improv work going through chords and passages.

now to be fair the kind of romantic piano work that goes on this track doesn't resonate with some people. the same way saxophones or flutes doesn't resonate well with others either. what's delightful in someone's ear can be schmaltz to someone else. it's the curse of smooth jazz in the end, wonderful idea but it has been horribly executed by a lot of people.

this is something that if it didn't have that element of bite in the bottom end and a solid foundation would be the equivalent of kenny g's "songbird". thankfully claussell knows his craft well and can knock out an awesome tune like this. well recommended.

buy here (djtunes)

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