BBC Radio/Sounds' head of social media Jem Stone fills us in on why he can't stop listening to viral hit Golden Brown, by Take Vibe EP...
This is a story of two Daves. In Brussels in 1964, pianist Dave Brubeck leads his Quartet while they tape a live set for Belgian TV featuring jazz classic Take Five.
In 1982, Stranglers keyboardist Dave Greenfield shares an unlikely harpsichord riff with his bandmates. “He was always noodling away,” said singer Hugh Cornwell. Guitarist Jean Jacques Burnel walks in, hears the finished track, calls it a “pile of shit”, yet a few weeks later Golden Brown was No.2, becoming their biggest ever hit.
In May 2020; musician Laurence Mason – AKA Take Vibe EP – wanting to pay tribute to Greenfield, who had sadly fallen victim to Covid-19 a few days earlier, took the ’64 Brubeck footage and samples the classic Joe Morello percussion.
He takes out his own alto sax, reproduces the Stranglers melody and the refurbished YouTube clip became an unlikely yet glorious viral hit. Now picked up by the Jazzroom label and soon to be part of Mason’s debut LP, this is an astonishing piece of witty musical trickery. It just clicks. You’ll play it over and over. You’d suspect the two Daves would thoroughly approve.
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