That spoken word sample in 3 Play it Cool

I was drawn to a spoken word sample a few years ago, but didn’t learn about it’s source until later on.

Right near the end of the track 3 Play it Cool by Crazy Penis, there’s this awesome sample about playing a b-flat trumpet. Here’s the clip:

(scroll forward to 5:38)

Now the time I first heard this, it sounded super cool to me. I knew it was complete nonsense but it still added a funny spin to the end of an otherwise pretty chill song. That delivery of the words, it just matches the ‘cool’ of jazz, even if it was a bit fake.

Yeah, yeah, I’m late to the party, since this song was released in 1999 several years after The Fast Show’s original run of 1994-1997.

I blame this squarely on the lack of bringing the classic British sketch comedy show The Fast Show to Australian audiences in the mid 90’s. We got a fair chunk of awesome 90’s UK TV in Australia but I don’t remember this gem ever making it’s way over here.

Today’s blog is brought to you by the genius of John Thomson and his guide to everything jazz. Cooool. Really cool.

He is, of course, the lampoon behind Louis Balfour, host of the regular “Jazz Club” segment which brought us many classic moments whilst he sent up the ridiculous world under the guise of The Jazzman. Niiice. Great.

The original skit is here:

The passage from Jackson is:

You see what I’m sayin’ Louis and the way that I play it. I play like you know, the b-flat trumpet. She blows a major second to start out, but what you might say, standard style there. You see, what I’m saying is, you take the key of C. You got the partials of low C there, that’s your harmonic series. But that’s all you got man. That’s all you got! You got the C, E, F - you got the notes, that’s all you got. You can run up, you can run down but you can’t run sideways! You can’t run from the law Louis baby. You see what I’m sayin’? Look at me, I’m outside of the law. You see, what I’m saying is: you got exhalation and you got inhalation. But they’re two different things man! You screw up, you got mutilation. You see what I’m sayin’?

• Jackson Jeffrey Jackson

What’s probably most interesting now that I’ve manually transcribed this passage is I know a lot more about what he’s saying! And it totally makes more sense now that I’ve seen the skit where Jackson performs his ‘sucking’ technique on the trumpet. Ridiculous. But wow, cool. That’s jazzzz. Jazz.

Anyways, it’s a great song, great use of a sample and an even better breadcrumb to discover the laugh-out-loud antics of Jazz Club.

More here:

• https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/nov/11/john-thomson-london-jazz-festival-fast-show-cold-feet

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