Barry's Gordy's Motown Groove

If the common garden sprinkler is not swinging with its, “Tch, tch, tch” what does swing? The history and definition of “swing” in music and academic circles always has been hotly contested. Most easily swing should be defined as music with a “rebound.” The “pop” music groove has a rebound of sorts and like Rock ‘n’ Roll both swings and is straight at the same time. This could be the reason it has risen to prominence recently in the commercial world of music. Although fervently I hate playing in the pop style, because it requires a lessening of academic piano technique, I will give credit where credit is due. I enjoy listening to piano players who are adept at this style. Analytically I can realize the music has no inherent groove of its own, but it accomplishes a feel if purveyed by the right musicians. James Taylor would be the prime example of a pop artist. That groove he chooses to play is concrete and tangible in a very elusive way. The touch required to play pop is specific, but it is the antithesis to playing R&B, Hip Hop, and Soul music. The difference is pop music uses a loose, quick, ahead-of-the-beat touch and uses amplification to achieve its groove. R&B, Hip Hop, and Soul use a heavy touch in the center or behind the beat most easily personified by the playing of Motown bassist James Jamerson. Affectionately he was called the “Hook” because, instead of using two or three fingers in quick succession to articulate linear phrases on the strings of the electric bass, he only used one. The spacing of the notes resulting from only repetitive plucks from the same digit created the unique feel of the music. That of itself could be the qualifying definition of a Motown groove. Motown is a pop groove in the sense that it does not use the keyboard concept (a similar single hand repetitive attack) to supply groove. It uses a derivative rhythmic concept from soul and R&B, because each and every note is not essential to the feel of the song. The groove is “stretched” over the top of what would be an authentic soul or R&B groove. The deepening of the groove via accentuation of individual notes and phrasing in a non-repetitive way would create the original grooves from which Motown borrowed. Jamerson, in this somewhat limited but specific rhythmic concept, was able to provide enough soul but not too much to be palatable by white radio listening audiences of Motown. It could be said this groove, pioneered, chosen, and shaped by Barry Gordy, was the magic that made Motown Records successful. I for one never listened to Motown music as a child. As a keyboard player the feel of guitar-based music didn’t communicate to me. I was invited and tried several times to play in Allman Brothers cover type bands, but the music always was lacking to me. Instead my first vinyl record was of the Jeff Lorber Fusion. Here was an iconic jazz/fusion band that satisfied both my musical intellect and my need for keyboard-based groove. How would I know decades later this acquired taste would come back to haunt me as a professional musician?