Earth Wind & Fire

[AndrewMeronek]

For the first real time, I finished real listening through an Earth Wind & Fire collection - a relatively small one - and yeah. Great band. As a trombonist, sometimes I think the quality of the recording of the horns was questionable, but most of the recordings are fine. That is - the horn players always killed it; I question the engineering when horns sound like a weak synth section. I don't have a single favorite tune, but they certainly did a bunch of fantastic stuff. "In The Stone" certainly would be in the list of favorites, though.

Also: that bass player seems to be pretty good.



Also: Wikipedia has a list of personnel who have performed this and the trombonists seems to be:

Benjamin Powell
Garnett Brown
George Bohanon
Louis Satterfield
Maurice Spears
William Reichenbach

That last one, I'm assuming is the famous Bill Reichenbach??

[officermayo]

[hyperbolica]

I saw EWF live at a corporate party in Vegas a couple of months ago. I was right up at the stage. Amazing. 3 og members, and that bass player was one of them. Perfectly ancient looking, but still strutting and playing bass like a wildman. Really the highlight of my business trip. The horn section was tight for a ~3 hour live gig. Great band, even live in 2023.

[cb56]

Verdine white is the bass player. Awsome band!

[AndrewMeronek]

Ok, Leonid & Friends sounds incredible.

[AndrewMeronek]

Also: those of us who have had to do it: that lick in September.

Nasty.

[Doug Elliott]

I occasionally sub in a good EWF tribute band. I heard a different EWF tribute band last year and the trumpet player nailed that lick in September. Everything else was pretty mediocre, but that lick was perfect.

[officermayo]

Maxim Likhachev (trombonist of Leonid & Frends) met EW&F today.

[rickfaulknernyc]

Also: Wikipedia has a list of personnel who have performed this and the trombonists seems to be:

Benjamin Powell
Garnett Brown
George Bohanon
Louis Satterfield
Maurice Spears
William Reichenbach

That last one, I'm assuming is the famous Bill Reichenbach??

On the really prominent horn lines, you're hearing Louis Satterfield of the Phenix Horns (EWF's working horn section from the 70's into the early 80's). I think that when other trombonists are credited, they're part of the studio orchestra used to fatten up the sound, and are probably much more in the background. (It is possible that sometimes the studio brass players are reinforcing the lines played by the Phenix Horns, though).

Check out this live performance of Serpentine Fire from 1979; Satterfield & co. are tearing it up, no studio reinforcement needed:



And, yes that's Bill Reichenbach...and Benjamin Powell is the great Bennie Powell, known for his time with Basie. Both were busy studio session players at the time.

[Finetales]

At some point, EWF began using the Jerry Hey horns for some of their records. I want to say "I Am" was the first? (In the Stone is probably the most famous one that's recognizably Jerry Hey horns.) Bill Reichenbach was Jerry's main trombonist for decades, so whenever Jerry Hey is credited you're also hearing Bill. The Phenix Horns sound with Michael Harris on lead trumpet is a different, but also awesome, sound.

What a band to give a real listen for the first time, though...I'm almost jealous. Earth, Wind & Fire is my favorite band of all time, no question. "All 'N' All" is my desert island album.

Also: those of us who have had to do it: that lick in September.

Nasty.

What's even harder is if you're on a band with charts, 99% of the time that lick is transcribed wrong. So you either play whatever approximation the transcriber settled on to the detriment of your soul, or agree as a section to play it right and hope the other players actually know it correctly!

[ithinknot]

What a band to give a real listen for the first time, though...I'm almost jealous.

Right?!

I haven't had that particular type and extent of joy since someone described me as "the sort of terrible person that would genuinely like Steely Dan".

They were not wrong.