{"id":20883,"date":"2021-04-21T05:30:55","date_gmt":"2021-04-21T09:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20883"},"modified":"2021-04-19T14:29:17","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T18:29:17","slug":"album-review-breakestra-the-live-mix-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/21\/album-review-breakestra-the-live-mix-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Breakestra &#8212; The Live Mix, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-20884\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/breakestra.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/breakestra.jpg 400w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/breakestra-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/breakestra-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/>A central component of some of the best hip-hop is the repurposing of tasty licks, breaks or other snippets from previously-record music, creating something new out of the old. Los Angeles-based Breakestra takes things a step farther (or backwards, depending on your point of view). However you describe it, it\u2019s inspired.<\/p>\n<p>Breakestra\u2019s debut album <i>The Live Mix, Part 1<\/i> was released in 1999; they\u2019d go on to release three more albums in a similarly-themed vein. Now Rare Sounds has reissued the group\u2019s debut, this time on vinyl where it belongs.<\/p>\n<p>Breakestra\u2019s approach to to cover the songs from which the hip-hop acts drew their samples. But instead of sampling, they play the songs on, y\u2019know, actual instruments. <i>The Live Mix, Part 1<\/i> is a seamless work that strings together classics from Jimmy Smith (\u201cRootdown\u201d), the Meters, (\u201cLittle Old Money Maker\u201d), Herbie Hancock, Marvin Gaye and more.<\/p>\n<p>The grooves are deep, the feel is funky, the playing is somehow loose and tight at once, and the vocals form Mixmaster Wolf are a cross between scat jazz and the kind of shouting employed by James Brown to keep his band moving along. The band doesn\u2019t engage in slavish covering, either: \u201cRootdown\u201d features Fender Rhodes rather than organ, and a flute is prominent.<\/p>\n<p>If there\u2019s any criticism of this set, it\u2019s that it\u2019s over too soon. Happily, the second side of the new LP features a bonus track, an original track called \u201cNo Matter where You Go.\u201d There\u2019s nothing wrong with it, and bonuses are always welcome, but it pales in comparison to the irresistible live-mix that has come before. Still, <i>The Live Mix, Part 1<\/i> in its current form is a true party record, one that works equally well for close listening as it does serving as the aural backdrop to a spirited get-together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A central component of some of the best hip-hop is the repurposing of tasty licks, breaks or other snippets from previously-record music, creating something new out of the old. Los [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20884,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,42,64,65,69,73],"tags":[4502,4503],"class_list":["post-20883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-funk","category-jazz","category-reissue","category-review","category-soul","category-vinyl","tag-breakestra","tag-rare-sounds","cat-31-id","cat-42-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","cat-69-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20885,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20883\/revisions\/20885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}