Gary King’s bassline is the most directly, instantly recognizable part of the song, and the first element of the song to really catch on as a loop (as we’ll find out shortly). For James, a couple different melodic fragments from that opening synthesizer have laced dozens of beats, as well as the stuttering keyboard refrain at around the 52-second mark.
But aside from the string section, it’s really just a trio - James on keyboard, Gary King on bass, and Idris Muhammad (yep, that one) on drums.Īnd every member of that trio wound up becoming a big part of the success of “Nautilus” in sample-based music. (After Two, Three, and BJ4, he got more creative his sixth album, the one with the Taxi theme on it, was called Touchdown.) Named after a sound in the synthesizer intro that reminded producer Creed Taylor of a submerging submarine, “Nautilus” is so complex and restless that it sounds like it involves more musicians than it actually does. “Nautilus” made for a strong early impression as the closer from James’ first solo album, appropriately titled One. and Stanley Turrentine, and he didn’t have to worry about crushing student debt or unaffordable housing, but still, dare to dream. Granted, he got an early cosign from Quincy Jones in the ’60s that he developed into a string of gigs doing arrangements for the likes of Grover Washington Jr. If you’re a millennial and you’re worried that you still haven’t made it, keep in mind that Bob James didn’t write and perform the song that became his first omnipresent sample standard until he was 35. The Original: Bob James, “Nautilus” (from One, CTI, 1974 no single released album peaked at #2 Billboard Jazz Albums, #48 Top Soul Albums, #85 Pop Albums) Master turntablist Cut Chemist got more than two hours out of it a while back, but for now, let’s look at just a few pivotal points in its evolution. And while the opening percussive bell-rocking salvo of “Take Me To The Mardi Gras” is an all-time classic, “Nautilus” might be Bob James’ most astonishing work of b-boy bait, with or without hip-hop’s role in taking its profile to the next level. James was a popular DJ selection because his pop-chart omnipresence was just notable enough that his stuff was easy to find (often in cut-out bins), and also because he had the habit of hiring the kind of tight session players - like Steve Gadd, session drummer extraordinaire - who were well-adapted to perform metronomically enough that their work made for seamless extended break loops. Then they’ll realize I’m a music critic and probably beat me up and throw me out on to the street, but time travel’s always had its risks.Īnyways, Bob James: side-eyed by jazz purists in the ’70s for a pop-friendly and occasionally frothy form of fusion that ranged from gloriously bombastic kitsch funk to windswept orchestral toes-in-the-sand demi-disco to the ideal soundtrack for a night of burglary in Malibu, the keyboardist/composer regained favor for a lot of the same reasons the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan have: a level of now-elusive sophisticated smoothness that translates surprisingly well to hip-hop reinterpretation. Like informing someone watching a brand-new episode of Taxi in 1978 that the guy who wrote and performed the cheerful smooth-jazz theme song became a pivotal component of a looming movement of transformative black American music. Maybe nothing so cruel as sending a Mets fan in 1986 a ghostly warning to enjoy it while it lasts, or anything based around the whole stomach-turning guess who our President is situation, but just silly little things about unexpected changes in the cultural winds. There are a lot of ways I wish I could use time travel to fuck with people on a trivial but entertaining basis. Breaks With Tradition is a Stereogum column that examines a certain song that’s been frequently sampled and how that song has been used through the years.