Watching the Beeb’s recent repeat of “Bowie at the BBC Radio Theatre”, I occasionally thought “His band is really tight”, but then it struck me that if I was asked, I couldn’t properly explain what makes a band tight, either in the studio or live.
It’s obviously an expression I’ve absorbed on my travels through life without thinking about what it actually means. I could say, probably without fear of contradiction, that the Dame’s band of ace sessioneers are tight, as are, for example, the E-Street Band, the Wrecking Crew, and Peter Gabriel’s usual shipmates (Levin, Rhodes, Katche, etc.). But why/how are they tight when others are not? Can a more knowledgeable muso enlighten me?
The same applies to “in the pocket”, as in “They were really in the pocket for that song.” Guy Pratt says it occasionally on the Rockonteurs, so I’m guessing it’s a drum/bass/rhythm thing, but what actually is the pocket, and how do you know when a performer is in it?
Anybody else willing to admit to a music-terminology blind spot or two?
These terms are loose and any professional band will be tight – they will start together and end together which will include knowing when they don’t play their instrument. Everybody knows exactly what they are to play and what they are not to play. But knowing what they are not to play does not mean that they can’t extemporise on their part. When bands have fairly complicated endings to songs. – three fake endings and a final one – they will have practised that a great deal though eventually the band begins to function as an organic whole – Petty’s Heartbreaker’s were like this. If you listen to Bob Dylan’s 1984 Real Live you will hear a band that is not tight despite being pros because Dylan rushed them , probably changed the song list without telling them. Lots of false starts and simply rock band endings. Guitars kind of all over the place. A tight band will be tight no matter the song and no matter how many instruments – they will move seamlessly through the various sections of the song. The Stop Making Sense show features one very tight band – as they should be given they were pros and had been playing those songs for a long time.
In the pocket ( to me ) mostly refers to the bass player and the drummer and sometimes the rhythm guitar. Obviously exceptions to this but on the whole it is that the rhythm section is locked in together. I saw a band one time without a drummer but the bass player and the percussion player were so together that I could have sworn they had a whole drum kit at times. In the pocket also tends to to be used when the music is more groove based, perhaps r’n’b , soul. When the rhythm section is locked in it makes it so much easier for everybody else ( especially the singer ) to know exactly how they might stretch and change the placing of their vocal, the performance of their vocal. So, my view is that ‘tight’ can refer to the whole band and ‘in the pocket’ to the rhythm section.
What EGBDF says.
Jon Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen. Tight as all f**k and absolutely in the pocket
As were the Meters who did the original version of this song. It’s notoriously difficult to play because of the offbeats
All Right Now by Free is about as ‘in the pocket’ as a rock band can be.
Spanish Moon by Little Feat is a good demonstration…
I should have left this here – a rhythm section showcases the definition of “in the pocket”…
Thanks very much to both of you. Both terms make more sense now.
Yet both “tight” and “loose” are used as articles of praise, which can confuse.
I like combos that are so tight they sound loose. The Tyshawn Sorey Trio spring to mind.
While their last two albums have been a bit underwhelming, their newest is being hailed as a real “return to form”
Underwhelming??? They are brilliant.
I suspect the dead hand of AI is at work here Holmes.
I was getting excited at the prospect of a ‘new’ album… 🙁
Me too. ☹️
I speak as a dancer; it’s all about the confidence you have in a band, that they are absolutely on the rhythm. But it’s not just about the beat, it’s about the emphasis, the dynamic, which makes it all swing. There is mention above, rightly, for the rhythm section, but it could just as easily be the box player and the bodhran, the fiddle and the mandolin. When the band are tight, your feet know it, ans it’s a joy.
Tight can perhaps be understood better by considering its converse: loose. Loose is like the live Stones on Get Yer Ya Yas Out. Instruments waft in and out of focus, time hastens and slows and there is a slightly shambolic edge to things, with the feeling that it could all fall apart at any moment. It can be wonderful.
Tight is more like he above quoted Meters, where the rhythm section is working as a single entity completely in lockstep. Cissy Strut is a good example. Metal bands such as Metallica are also exceedingly tight, with intricate time signatures and stop/starts. With funk and metal it becomes very evident when things aren’t tight.
‘In the pocket’ is something different again. The tempo of a song with a live drummer can shift slightly in font of or behind the beat. This is part of the groove of a song, and barely perceptible changes can make a song sound more relaxed or urgent. A band is ‘in the pocket’ if the rhythm section is locked into this groove, sitting just in front of or behind the beat. Btw this is also why songs with electronic drums or sequencers programmed to fall metronomically on the beat sound so mechanical and unnatural.
that’s it! You don’t have pockets in the middle of your trousers. They are at the front or behind. Or side or hidden or… wait, this isn’t working out so well.
But kangaroos have a pouch at the front and what about the sporran.
Maybe I’m overthinking this.
Then there’s coat pockets, jacket pockets and pockets of resistance.
Then there’s Hey Pocky Way.
Excellent explanation Pod. I’d just add the mythical “tight but loose” – bands who are right on the money but with a looseness and swagger which makes it really cook. Little Feat have it, the Stones at their best have it, anything with Simon Kirke involved has it. Steely Dan have their version of it – as a session guitarist on Aja said, “they didn’t want perfection, they wanted to go behind that to where it sounds natural”.
One of my favourite live concerts ever is Paul Simon live in Central Park in 1991. I’m not sure what the correct terminology is but ‘tight’ comes pretty close. Which, of course, it should be with Steve Gadd and Richard Tee on board.
Is that a band in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?
It would be nice if this thread resulted in the revival of the expression “tighter than Dick’s hatband” but for reasons of musicianship rather than inebriation as used to be the case
@Jaygee I’d never heard the phrase “tighter than Dick’s hatband” but only as “queer as Dick’s hatband” — Absurdly queer, (or as the case may be when said to be tight, inordinately parsimonious) . The ‘Dick’ alluded to in this metaphor was Richard Cromwell, ‘Lord protector’ of England for a few months, September 1658 to May 1659.
In True Grit “tighter than Dick’s hatband” is used but this means the person is stingy with money I can’t find that it refers to someone being drunk, though of course tight can mean drunk.
I’ve seen Stephen King use “gayer than old Dad’s hatband” when somebody was referring to a flamboyant character. I think that was the first time I’d come across any variant of this expression.
Didn’t know it had originated with Richard Cromwell – Interesting how these things evolve/mutate over time
Can’t remember where I read it, but if you think of the beat as a dot on the page, you can zoom in and see that dot as a larger circle on which you have to land *somewhere*. Musicians will naturally land earlier or later within that circle. A tighter band will land bang in the centre, or even at the front of that circle. Live Stones, as mentioned above, all land at different points, but all mainly nearer the back of the circle. (The opening bars of the studio recording of Let it Bleed are an example of as late as it’s possible to be before actually playing the following song.)
My understanding of the ‘pocket’ is that the musicians aren’t necessarily all the front or centre of the circle (though that is often the case); more that those musos all are landing at either the same point in the circle, or that the differences between where they land create a pleasing and musical rhythmic tension.
My covers band have just started playing with backing tracks. The tension between metronomic programmed percussion and a very feel based (late on the circle) drummer sounds really great.
Mick Fleetwood says he is always just behind the beat and John McVee is just ahead which is where their groove comes from.
DanP, that’s an interesting way of looking at it and makes a lot of sense.
There may be no drums, but it doesn’t get much tighter than this.
https://grahammackenzieandrorymatheson.bandcamp.com/album/take-six?t=2
Surprise yourself and play it all, for the full Beryl Marriott heart eaten out brinksmanship.or just Ascension Jigs (track 2) if you can’t bear the idea.
I tend to think of in the pocket as meaning all are in the same space, aware of each other, on the same wavelength, locked-in telepathically. These expressions are quite loose though, rather than tight, open to interpretation such that in the pocket means playing in a way that can be called tight. If you want.
The Stones were in the pocket because Charlie and Keith had an understanding and awareness based on rhythm and the groove. They were tight enough to be loose because they could play around with the beat and Charlie said he followed Keith which gave a unique style.
A band is tight for all of the reasons eloquently explained. A really tight band needs an onstage leader, a conductor almost, to control the cues and improvs.
BB King and his band being a good example. Onstage he would sometimes freewheel and stop and start for various reasons. He would often talk to the audience mid song and have the band bubble away behind his anecdotes until he was ready to continue. Everyone, and I mean everyone, in the band was waiting for the hand signal to get back to it right on the nail.
It was once explained to me that ‘in the pocket’ meant that the drummer and bassist were sync’d but would be separately stressing alternate beats. For example the drummer would be on the one and bassist on another, the three. That locked in tension making for a funky groove.
That may be a pile of balls.
I’ve always considered this track as an exemplar of a tight funk band and most p-funk would be at the loose end of the spectrum. See also “God Made Me Funky”, by the Headhunters.
Wow! That’s great. I bet ACR are chuffed with that.
ACRs version was a cover 6 years after the original. I’m not mad about it.
I think the four-on-the-floor bass drum would suggest that the band is tight, but there’s no pocket with the bass and drums
I was only going for tight there. I’m still trying to think of a good example of “in the pocket”.
See”Spanish Moon” above.
That’s what the men think… what about you dames out there?!
A good example of tight and in the pocket! Possibly the “tightest band” I have heard an an amazing live experience if you ever get the chance to see them
Snarky Puppy came to NZ last month playing that album – We Like It Here. My second time seeing them and they were phenomenal. Tight as a drum, of course.
My favourite new discovery is the Spanish Snarky Puppy, Patax