User:Jmastrianni/Shaftdown

“Shaftdown” is the name given to the songs Theme From Shaft by Issac Hayes and Shakedown Street by The Grateful Dead when performed together as a medley. A staple of several jam bands’ live show, the first known arrangement of Shaft and Shakedown was developed by James Mastrianni in the early 2000’s. Seemingly an odd pairing of songs from disparate musical genres, the two pieces combine very well together for harmonic, rhythmic, sonic, stylistic and social reasons creating an interesting, exciting and satisfying listening experience.

Harmonic
Harmonically the tonal centers for the main section of Shaft and the introduction of Shakedown are closely related making a transition between the two harmonically easy and satisfying to the listener. Shaft centers on the Fmaj7 chord while the introduction of Shakedown centers on the Dmin chord. These two chords are closely related as Fmaj is the relative major of Dmin. A key change between these two tonal centers is therefore extremely natural sounding. The listener may not even be aware the key changed but realizes that “something” interesting happened. By modulating from major to minor, the level of musical tension is increased creating a sense of excitement. Additionally, the harmonic progression of Shaft vacillates between two chords: Fmaj7 and Emin7, each occurring over two measures. This progression is repeated for more than two minutes deeply rooting the harmony in the ear of the listener. Upon transitioning to Shakedown, the Em7 chord which has been rooted as the concluding chord of the progression, now serves as a passing chord to the opening Dmin chord of Shakedown. The harmony literally slides to a brand new location with a well known chord serving in a new function to ease the change of keys.

Rhythmic
Rhythmically, the two pieces have similar tempos, although Shaft is slightly faster than Shakedown. Shaft also has more excitement in the groove as it is centered on a 16th note pattern on the drummer’s high-hat where as Shakedown uses an 8th note feel. The difference in grooves presents an opportunity for a well known and effective musical device used by jam bands: settling into a groove. “Settling” is when a transition occurs between two sections of music that have different tempos and feels. A musically satisfying sense of tension and release occurs as the components of the new tempo and feel are integrated into the existing tempo and feel. The new components naturally introduce chaos resulting in increased tension. As the chaotic events are assimilated into the groove the tension decreases resulting in a feeling of release. Often there is a palpable audience sigh when a jam band “lands” and settles in a new groove. A hallmark of any good jam band is its ability to meld fluidly between grooves acting not as a collection of individual musicians but as a single unit. Shaftdown readily presents such an opportunity for a jam band to showcase this ability.

Sonic
Sonically, Shaft and Shakedown both use similar pieces of signal processing on the lead electric guitar. The lead guitar of Shaft utilizes the guitar stomp box commonly referred to as a “wah-wah” pedal where as Shakedown uses an “envelope filter” also known as “auto-wah.” Both effects similarly transform the guitar signal by modulating the cutoff frequency of a band pass filter creating a “wah” or “wow” type sound. The effect is either manually controlled by a rocker pedal (i.e. wah-wah pedal) or electronically controlled by a circuit that automatically (i.e. auto-wah) responds to how loud or soft the guitar player is playing. Regardless of device, the similar sound generated by both effects is highly distinctive, recognizable and became associated with funk and disco records produced in the 1970s. Similar to a common tone in a progression of chords that unites the chords, this distinctive sound common to both songs unites Shaft and Shakedown and strengthens the musicality of the medley.

Stylistic and Social
A variety of stylistic and social reasons also help explain the effectiveness of the Shaftdown medley. The jam band scene stems from the 60’s counter culture epitomized by The Grateful Dead. Shakedown Street is a beloved song by The Grateful Dead, is very danceable, and so is often a staple of jam bands’ live repertoire. In composing Shakedown Street, The Grateful Dead incorporated elements of disco and funk into their compositional process as they had previously done with blues, jazz, folk, country and bluegrass. The pairing of Shaft and Shakedown works stylistically as Shaft is an example of the kind of music The Dead were borrowing from.

Shaft is a product of 1970’s African American culture and was originally composed for the eponymously named “Blacksploitation” film. The acceptance of such a radically culturally-differing piece of music by the jam band crowd is interesting to note. The concept of counterculture, that is a culture whose values and norms are separate from the dominant culture, may explain the acceptance of Shaft in the jam band arena. The cultures that produced both Shaft and Shakedown are both countercultures. There is an affinity between two countercultures as they are both united against the dominant culture.

Conclusion
Hanging the audience off the cliff of new, risky and differing artistic territory; letting them dangle for a while; and then reeling them home to the familiar is a time-tested and effective artistic conceit. The Shaftdown medley exemplifies this conceit and creates an interesting and musically satisfying experience.