fade-outs

[Wombatz]

this is a real headscratcher. last and arguably best track on the record, everybody is finally floating, then initiating the landing protocol, but the final free melody chorus is faded out prematurely at the beginning of the bridge. ok they play a sort of one-chord texture for the four bars you can still hear of that, but it's absolutely clear they don't intend to end here. we're at 17:40 for the side, so it can't be due to length considerations. more recent reissues come with a couple of bonus tracks but no complete take of this tune. so did they lose the thread, hit some clinkers, or did rudy van gelder's cat jump on the faders?



ps i googled the back cover and ira gitler mentions this: "booker's last solo fades into the distance in a spiralling pattern." so they pretend it's on purpose.

pps i googled the cat but it turns out rudy had a dog. here it is with elmo hope.



ppps dan will know what the movie is. i recognize brialy but not the other guy so it's probably italian?

[Wombatz]

not the biggest fan of his later work, but this is a killer song. livin' ain't easy when you're black and greasy. and it has a programmatic fade-out: first the band fade to leave the singer indeed out here all alone, spookily, and then they return so everybody can fade out into the sunset together. rip, sir.

[Wombatz]

ok, the most spectacular thing here is how much the band don't get the groove of the original ... i thought maybe a bunch of ofays, but no it's cornell dupree, jimmy johnson, etc. the ofay up front (of black saint and sinner lady fame) and his fidgety soloing style don't help but still. the fade-out, though, is super tastefully done ... it might seem unspectacular but if you listen closely, when the guitar solo returns to riffing, they put a ring mod-like effect over it to double the line ...

[Wombatz]

nothing remarkable about the fade-out in itself, just that it's part of such a well thought out structure. first the whole thing seems to meander, offering a couple of half-hooks before it settles on "if you won't go with me" as the proper hook, alternating it with different parts, then dissolving that hook, leaving out the background vocal the penultimate time, finally ad-libbing over the lyrics into the fade-out. perfect track.

[Wombatz]

(thread abandoned since the video embed no longer works ... final note to self: the brothers jonhson's version of strawberry letter 23 has a fade on the intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRVA2YBhrrQ)

[kuzine]

Embeds look fine on my side? Or is it an issue with new posts? (apologies, longtime lurker, but I enjoy threads like these on here!)

[Wombatz]

hi, thanks, it's cool somebody is enjoying these. yes, it's still working in some browsers/on some devices, on other's there's just a black rectangle. these are flash-embedded so it's only going to get worse.

[Wombatz]

for those whose flashes still work: proper ending, onto which some pseudo barbershop harmony is spliced for a transition into a coda that's then faded out. no deeper sense except the psychedelic gesture. quick fade-in too:



which reminds me of a better song on a similar topic. the fade-out itself is not very remarkable, but it's interesting how every part has its own character/acoustic space (done by strings, echo guitar, more or less shuffle, most obviously the hard transition into the bar scene and the softer transition out of it). the final part is given just long enough to suggest an ad infinitum before it is faded out.

[Wombatz]

not much of a family fan except for the studio side of anyway ... listening to that again, hey it ends on a very well-made fade-out (to repeat what we've learned on this thread: the best fade-outs add a new element while at the same they they don't feel like you're missing something). here it's very heavy-sounding processed handclaps. but the complete track's meanderings are amazing, such as the roominess of the guitar sound during the solo and more generally the total disregard for spatial unity or even a consistent control room scenario.

[Wombatz]

this is one of the best ... last track of the excellent motherlight by bobak, jons, malone from 1969 ... properly ending the song except for some noodling impressionist piano and then briefly fading in and out all songs from the album like in a flashback scene ... (a bit of a precursor to the beginning of lou reed's berlin too)

[Wombatz]

here's the fade-out as intro ... it's really a preview of the actual fade-out at the end of the song ... for more symmetry? it cause a key change at the start that's fun but somewhat subverting the track's undeniable hit potential.



(the original by shuggie otis has neither the intro nor this exact key change and moves into prog territory instead. pretty unremarkable as a fade-out still here it is for easy comparison:)