Any Fender Rhodes fans?

[pdcmusic]

Finding a few great tracks on Soundclick featuring
the Fender Rhodes piano has promted me to start
putting together a Station with that theme. I'm
still looking for more but you can listen to streaming
audio of the tracks I've found so far @

"Jazz Rhodes"

http://www.soundclick.com/stations/s....cfm?id=353690
[click *station radio* link beneath station name to play all songs]

or listen to this sample track now
"Swing D" by Peter Falkner
hi-fi (broadband): http://www.soundclick.com/util/getpl...d=3023851&q=hi
lo-fi (dial-up) : http://www.soundclick.com/util/getpl...d=3023851&q=lo

I'd be interested to hear people's all-time favourite track featuring a Rhodes piano.
For me it's the live version of Joe Zawinul's "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" by The
Cannonball Adderley Quintet. Love that muddy funky sound!

How about you?

Paul

[Jakeweiser]

I love Rhodes

My brother's is sitting in the living room blocking the real piano

Great sound for all sorts of music, i'd love to record with rhodes but sometimes the Guitar and Rhodes blend gets difficult.

[senorblues]

I love the Rhodes sound and have heard alot of it recently on jazz radio.

[Fender Rhodes Freak]

What do you think?

[Hot Ptah]

Did Chick Corea play a Fender Rhodes on his early 1970s recordings with Miles Davis (like "Black Beauty") and on "Return to Forever" and "Light As A Feather"? I always liked his playing and the sound of the instrument in that era.

[Bev Stapleton]

Love it.

Always has a nostalgic feel for me as it was still 'the' modern keyboard sound when I first started listening c.1970.

I can be made very happy wallowing in a world of fender rhodes and mellotrons.

[Head Man]

Uri Caine plays some nice Fender Rhodes on the new Dave Douglas CD - 'Meaning and mystery'.

[pdcmusic]

Looks like my favourite - Joe Zawinul's "Mercy Mercy Mercy" -
was actually recorded on a Wurlitzer. This page @ Zawinul
Online http://www.binkie.net/zawinul/Keyboards.html states:

"According to a 1979 Rolling Stone article, one year when
Cannonball Adderley's band played the JazzMobile, New York's
bandstand on wheels, "the only available piano was a Wurlitzer
electric. The sound of this odd little keyboard inspired Zawinul,
the product of a Viennese conservatory, to write 'Mercy, Mercy,
Mercy,' a soul-jazz classic that became Adderley's biggest hit."

I'll have to change my favourite Rhodes track to Herbie Hancock's
"Chameleon".

very best

Paul
"Jazz Rhodes"

[jlhoots]

Originally Posted by Head Man

Uri Caine plays some nice Fender Rhodes on the new Dave Douglas CD - 'Meaning and mystery'.

Uri Caine is exactly who came to mind when I first saw this topic.

[OnyaBirri]

Originally Posted by pdcmusic

Looks like my favourite - Joe Zawinul's "Mercy Mercy Mercy" -
was actually recorded on a Wurlitzer...

I prefer the Wurlitzer to the Rhodes. It has a much more biting, intense sound.

Back in the day, one thing that was really annoying about the Rhodes was that the sound and touch really varied from one to the next. Some had that biting sound, which was closer to the Wurly, but others had this chimey, muddy sound. Also, fatter, fuller chords with harmonic tensions came through better on Wurlies. On some Rhodes, chords with anything more than 4, maybe five voices could turn to mush quick.

Of course, tyring to play either one like a real piano defeats the purpose. Electric pianos are best when treated as such.

[thedwork]

i've actually been revisiting shawn colvin's classic record A Few Small Repairs the last couple weeks. the tunes "The Facts About Jimmy" and especially "Suicide Alley" have great rhodes parts. man that's a great record.

[Shade of Blue]

I don't know anything about electric pianos, but I don't especially like any of them.

While I understand that they have the advantage of portability, for sound purposes I'd take a real piano or a B3 over them any day.

[OnyaBirri]

Originally Posted by Shade of Blue

I don't know anything about electric pianos, but I don't especially like any of them.

While I understand that they have the advantage of portability, for sound purposes I'd take a real piano or a B3 over them any day.

That's the thing about the electric piano: It was initially devised as a portable substitute for a real piano.

But enough time has gone by- and enough people have figured out its strengths and limitations - that it has become an instrument in its own right, and there is a certain aesthetic an electric piano will give you that a 12' Bosendorfer can't even provide.

An electric piano in an acoustic swing or bebop setting gives you an instant wedding band.

Put that same electric piano with an electric bass, drums and conga playing a laid-back funk rhythm, and nothing can replace it.

[Lonson]

Anyone like RMI electric pianos? A friend of mine had one in the seventies, and I used to like to play it. I hear the sounds of the RMI on a number of electric Miles recordings with Hancock and Corea (e.g. Dual Mr. Tillman Anthony). These pianos could generate a crisp and lean sound.

[Lonson]

I really like the few examples of (Wurlitzer I believe) Ellington playing electric piano on the Capitol sessions.

I think Stevie Wonder may be the best of the players of the electric piano the seventies ever had.