Patrice Rushen’s memory songs

White people do not generally grow up listening to Patrice Rushen; we have to seek her out. I only got hip to her when I heard her speak at the 2018 Ableton Loop conference in Los Angeles. I quickly learned that she co-wrote and produced one of the bangingest bangers in history.

The devastating bassline is by Freddie Washington, and the silky smooth sax is by Gerald Albright. I don’t normally go in for this style of R&B sax, but that solo is too funky and on point to resist.

Wikipedia reminded me that I heard “Forget Me Nots” many times from watching and re-watching the movie Big as a kid.

“Forget Me Nots” was remade into the Men In Black song, which I have no particular feelings about. Enjoy, I guess:

Anyway, “Forget Me Nots” is a flawlessly crafted groove, and it is worth digging into. Here’s my transcription:

Most of the tune is in F# natural minor. The chord progression carefully resists harmonic closure. The G#m7 comes from a different scale, F# Dorian mode. The only difference is that F# natural minor includes the note D, whereas F# Dorian includes D-sharp. That’s a small change, but it sticks out.

Patrice Rushen’s feather-light reverb-soaked vocals float along on top of the groove like mist over pounding ocean surf. The melody sticks to F# natural minor for the most part, but in the chorus, listen to the first time that she sings the word “remember.” That last syllable is a blue note that falls somewhere between C natural and C-sharp. I wrote it as a C natural, and colored it blue.

Let’s look closer at the bass groove. In the first bar, there’s an accent on the “and” of one, the very weakest offbeat there is. There’s another accent on the “and” of three. There are sixteenth note anticipations before the downbeat of measure two, as well as the third beat in that measure, and before the downbeat of measure three. That is a whole lot of rhythmic information packed into a small space. Here’s my radial visualization of the MIDI version:

Patrice Rushen’s second-most-banging banger is from the same album as “Forget Me Nots”, and its lyrics have a similar theme.

My six-year-old daughter adores “Remind Me”, though she has no idea what the lyrics are. That’s okay, they are just there to decorate the groove anyway. The great James Gadsen plays drums, and Patrice Rushen plays all the other instruments. The groove slinks effortlessly along at 91 beats per minute, and Ableton Live shows hardly any tempo variation. How tight is that electric piano solo? Patrice Rushen has spoken in interviews about how much she admires Herbie Hancock, and you can hear Herbie’s sensibility in her harmonically and rhythmically complex lines that never lose the thread of the groove.

The harmony in this tune seems simple, just three chords repeating without variation. But what are those three chords? Usually I can tell from casual listening, but for this tune I had to dig in with the spectrogram and identify the chords one pitch at a time. Here’s what I came up with.

This is a profoundly strange chord progression! The first chord in the loop is Dm with various extensions. The bassline suggests D natural minor (it uses B-flat), while the vocal melody suggests D Dorian (it uses the occasional B natural). The Am11 is basically just Em7 with A in the bass. That makes you expect A7, to make a ii-V-i progression looping back around to Dm. This is what happens in the last bar of the intro. However, everywhere else in the tune, the third chord in the loop is Amaj9. There is definitely a G-sharp in there! So actually the Dm is the iv chord in A major, and the Amaj9 is the I chord? And that makes Am11 actually A9sus4, I guess? But that has a G natural, implying A Mixolydian, whereas Amaj9 has G-sharp, so it implies A major. What is going on here? The only answer is to say that the tune is both in D minor with a flexible sixth, and in A major with a flexible seventh. That is so hip!

Here’s a circular MIDI view of the opening four bars of the intro: You can see the sparkly arpeggiator in pink.

Here are measures 13-16 of the intro.

As befits a beautifully-produced groove of this caliber, “Remind Me” has been sampled many many times. Standout examples include “I Need You” by Junior MAFIA featuring Aaliyah:

“5 ela (remix)” by Slum Village, a great J Dilla sample flip:

“Falling in Love” by Faith Evans:

“Talkin’ to Me (Mark Ronson Sunshine Mix)” by Amerie:

I also like the Reflex Revision:

Before she started singing R&B, Patrice Rushen had a distinguished career as a straightahead jazz pianist, and she also played a lot of twisty fusion. Aside from the aforementioned tracks, my favorite of her recordings is Jean-Luc Ponty’s album Upon The Wings of Music, which is essentially a funkier version of the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

In her Ableton Loop talk, Rushen reminisced about growing up in Compton and being surrounded by musicians. Earth, Wind and Fire rehearsed in her basement, and played at her high school prom! She also had some wise words about self-care for musicians, who tend to have their feelings dialed up to ten all the time. She advised us to remember that not everything is such a big deal, especially the failures and setbacks, of which there are many. She also asked: “Ever wonder why we close our eyes when we pray, when we dream, when we kiss?” That is a good question.