The compact disc comes in a very nice black & white 4-panel digipak with a 12-page booklet displaying lots of great pictures from the actual recording session. Liner notes authored by the associate editor of dig! magazine, Charlene Diehl and graphic design by John Funk.
This project is funded in part by FACTOR, the Government of Canada and Canada’s private radio broadcasters. Ce projet est financé en partie par FACTOR, le gouvernement du Canada et les radiodiffuseurs privés du Canada
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about
“Heavens to Murgatroyd!” is a bit of an outlier. It looks back to the cartoons of my childhood and forward to the electronic innovations of hip-hop. This tune began with the boxed-in ragtime feel of a bass ostinato and repetitive harmonic figure. Once I had that going, I composed a melody—I was looking for something that would contrast with that pattern, but not get in the way of it. When I put them together, the combination was so humorous that I suddenly heard “Heavens to Murgatroyd!” in my head—in the voice of Snagglepuss, of course. I found this funny bells-and-chimes pattern that I remembered from a cartoon sound track, and had my engineer sample and loop it. It creates part of the oddball mechanical feel of the tune because it’s a 4/4 loop laid over a 3/4 tune. That off-balance feel is enhanced by the drums. For the ending vamp, I layered over a big drum solo with a bunch of old slapstick cartoon sound effects like horn-honking and that funny sound when a character takes off really fast. The whole tune is a hodgepodge bouquet of chaos— it’s crazy!
from Still I Rise,
track released July 10, 2020
Soloists: Derrick Gardner (trumpet), Vincent Gardner (trombone), Rob Dixon (tenor), Curtis Nowosad (drums), DJ Stop (DJ)