I wrote "Gritty City Strut" in March 2024. I was going for a pitch opportunity that was looking for funky vintage 70s Afrobeat-style instrumental jazz like Fela Kuti and Hugh Masekela. I used to listen to a lot of that kind of music so I thought, why not give it a shot?  The piece didn't ultimately get used for the pitch, but I still like it so I'm sharing it here.

I usually try to teach myself something new when I'm producing a piece like this, and in this case the main thing I was working on was the horns. I really like music with big horn sections, but I'm not a horn player and I am not in the position to hire a half-dozen horn players every time I want horns on a song.

So I wanted to try to create a virtual horn section using sampled instruments. This is not an uncommon thing to do, but it's a lot harder than you might suppose. Even really good horn samples can sound fake and funny if you don't apply a lot of processing to them.

I had to watch a lot of youtube videos to figure out how to steer myself toward a realistic / vintage live horn sound, and then I spent a long time messing with it to get it passable.

I also asked one of my kids, who plays trombone, for a critique. They said I had made some of the staccato hits *too* staccato,  and it didn't sound realistic. So I adjusted until they were satisfied. I think it sounds pretty good now.

I created the cover art using an AI tool.