The Other Side of Fred Composition is a very important part of Fred Wesley's life and career and he sees it as the way forward for himself. "New things come more with producing records and writing songs. That's where I try to advance my musical ability. More so than playing the trombone. I'd like to continue...composing music and doing jazz funk, or however you want to categorise it, albums in the future." After joining the James Brown band it was not long before he was contributing his own ideas and compositions. Wesley co-wrote the 1971 James Brown hit 'Get On The Good Foot' and most of the tunes on the Fred Wesley and the J.B.'s albums. If one listens to the albums that Wesley has had significant input; from James Brown through the J.B.'s, Parliament and the Homy Homs to the present, it is possible to see the way his compositional and arranging skills have developed. "l try not to repeat myself. Thetis number one. I try to develop some sounds with the hams. Usually we used four to six hams and I just tried to do as many different things with that combination of horns that I could. That's why it gets more complicated I guess. I'm trying not to repeat what I've already done before." "I write music in two different ways, I call myself a 'song craftsman'. Sometimes somebody will tell me to write a song about such and such and I would create something. I did that a lot with James Brown. However, there are some things that I call 'gifts from Godi. This is when I am just sitting at the piano or just riding along and the words or the music come to me." These 'gifts from God' include tunes such as For The Elders, dedicated to J.J.Johnson and Slide Hampton, and Peace Fugue. Both of these tracks can be found on the 1990 album 'New Friends'. Peace Fugue is a simple but moving ballad that was written in 1972 and is very canon-like in its arrangement. The tune originally appeared on the 1977 Horny Horns album 'A Blow For Me, A Toot for You' and was played by trombone, alto saxophone and trumpet. On 'New Friends', however, it is played by the trombones of Wesley, Steve Turre and Robin Eubanks. Having the tune played with three instruments with the same timbre and acoustic bass produces a very haunting sound. In the scores I have included a transcription of a blues Wesley wrote from the album 'Full Circle' called Slide Man. Written in 6/4 time, the rhythm section 'lays it down and dirty', in typical 'buhloooz' fashion. I do not know if this was written tongue-in-cheek but it certainly makes me smile whenever I listen to it. I asked Fred, in the interview if there were any tunes or horn arrangements that he had written that were particularly special to him. "There's tune going around now, a re-release on a compilation, called Lickity Split and that's one of my favourites. I like it a lot. It's one of those sounds. I try to put things rhythmically. I try to do things harmonically and then sometimes I just try to make the horns make a sound. And this particular arrangement was based on a sound that the horns get with this particular four spacing of the voicing of the notes That's one of my favourites." Lickity Split is a tune Wesley wrote in 1994 and was originally on the Horny Horns album 'The Final Blow'. It is basically an A minor vamp with the horns arranged in close quartal harmony. Fig 4.1 is the main rift of the tune.
The horns lines in the rest of the piece are similary arranged. This tune also demonstrate another facet of Fred Wesley's playing technique, stamina. It features two trombone solo; one 88 bars long and the others 72 bars. Fred Wesley has the reputation for being the funkiest trombone player in the world and it would be very hard for anyone to dispute this. In this article I have attempted to show why he richly deserves this title. There is no one on the scene who plays the funk as well or as hard as Wesley. When it comes to trombone playing Fred admits that his style is set the way it is. This is evident when one listens to and compares many of his funk solos. There seems to be a tendency to replay whole sections of previous solos. An example of this is the song House Party. On the 1994 live album 'Soundtrack' by Maceo Parker Fred Wesley sings and plays on the track House Party. In this song there is a four bar section where the hams play a rift and this is immediately followed by short trombone licks. At the gig at the 'Roadhouse' he starts his set with House Party and the trombone licks in that 4 bar section are almost identical to that on 'Soundtrack'. I do not have a problem with this as, after all, they are his licks. There is plenty of inventiveness in his jazz playing. He always seems to add a different slant to the way he playsjazz standards to make them different from the norm. Two examples of this are the horn backing figures in On Green Dolphin Street and the exceedingly laid back and bluesey head section of Blue Monk. The feel of this version changes almost completely at various stages in the solo sections.Fred Wesley is now concentrating his efforts on producing and writing songs. He has an impeccable track record in this area of his musicianship and I very much look forward to hearing his work.
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