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QUARTERTONES SCALE UNCONVENTIONAL KEY viewmag.com The Quartertones - Hidden In Plain Sight [URBNET Records] By Sarah Cairns Veterans of the Toronto live music scene since ’96, The Quartertones have lived a chameleon’s existence. From their origins as a strictly jazz collective, through their funky fusions to their current foray into hip hop and vocal styling, this band bucks your average caloric pop pigeonhole. “We had a really hard time classifying our music because it goes in so many different directions in just one song,” says Planetpea, a.k.a. Philip Rae, one–fifth of The Quartertones. “It could be classified as jazz, it could be classified as hip hop, or it could be classified as funk fusion, so we had a hard time trying to figure out something that could embody the entire spectrum of what we do. We came up with organic, meaning live playing in the rare groove, which is music that is hard to come by but is really groovy, funky and has a lot of depth to it. There’s solidity behind it.” That solidification comes from three of the five–member band being classically trained jazz musicians, and the remaining duo respected hip hop producers. While it may seem like an unusual pairing for fans of either genus, it works. “Hip hop and jazz are very similar in that they both utilize the same attitude toward presenting music,” reflects Rae. “Jazzers, they battle each other. If you listen to Miles Davis and John Coltrane in the same song, they try and out do each other, it’s a friendly thing, but they still try to out do each other. Hip hop is the same idea the battle aspect is there. So we can relate to each other on that level. That really pushes the envelope, pushes the boundaries. The influence of both genres and cultures, they merge and intersect at one point, before they spread apart and go in different directions. It’s interesting.” For Rae, the experience of working with jazz musicians has been enlightening, especially after a stint in the now defunct band Len. “Being in Len, I had my time to fool around and see a different side of how the music industry works. Then stepping into this side, being a recording engineer, programming the drums and being involved in the process with a bunch of classically trained musicians, it opens my eyes to a different perspective. There’s time for fun and games, but when these guys are playing, there’s no games, it’s serious business, we’re working,” laughs Rae. He feels the process of making music with The Quartertones has also been a learning experience. “When we’re making our music there is a solid love for musicians and musicianship. The core essence of the band is good music. We’ll sit down and write a song and constantly refine it till we come up with something that’s concrete and we feel comfortable with. As opposed to hip hop, where myself and DJ Serious have our roots, we can make a song in an hour and feel comfortable with it. The reason is, we rely on ourselves to make the music, to sample a beat, cut it up and then replay it. But when you step into a room full of musicians, they’re speaking a different language, the language of music. It’s about notes and chords and how everything fits together.” While musicianship is an important factor in the band, technology too has a role to play in the making of a Quartertones song. Additional musicians are brought in and their sessions are recorded onto computer and polished with Pro Tools. This process solves a big dilemma for the band—cash. It becomes too expensive to rely on outside players for a live gig, and makes it almost impossible to tour. “In order to work around this problem, I developed an idea where we would use a laptop to replay what the musicians had done. So the band plays guitar and bass and it’s played over the computer, which plays the backing tracks. But in order for me to play along with Kori and Tai, I do live sequencing, so I use the hip–hop aesthetic basically running loops, and I move through the arrangement of the song with the band.” The Quartertones will be featuring songs from their first full–length CD, Hidden In Plain Sight when they open for Kobayashi at Pepper Jack’s Saturday, March 12. The band hopes to begin touring in Japan in the foreseeable future, so don’t miss out, it may be a while before they return to us. V | ||||||
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