Questlove’s Fantastic Video Mix of 50 Years of SNL Music
Oh this is just delightful: for the opening of his documentary film on the history of music on SNL he co-directed with Oz Rodriguez, Questlove produced what the NY Times calls “a high-speed, six-minute DJ mix of SNL music highlights”. So. Good.
From the same piece in the Times, Questlove explains how it came about:
It’s impossible for me to phone anything in, even if I wanted to. I just wanted to throw the ultimate D.J. gig and hook you in from the gate. It started off small, and it couldn’t stop.
In the beginning, I was just going in five-year intervals — what’s the three strongest moments between ‘75 and ‘80? — and do it that way. But I’m so programmed as a D.J. it’s physically impossible for me to gather a group of songs together and not start — that’s my version of improvisation. And once you put, like, 17 songs together, you have a conversation with yourself: “OK, are we really doing this?”
My producers said: “It’ll never happen! The clearance, the clearance!” This is the first time that I realized my diplomatic position in music. People say, “Ahmir, you might be the next Quincy Jones, because your whole thing is more social than creative, knowing the right people, knowing who’s who.” There were at least 19 situations in which I had to come hat in hand to said person, and mind you, this is for two seconds — Michael Bolton singing “Love Is a Wonderful Thing” just once.
He got every clearance except for Luciano Pavarotti:
The only outright no that I couldn’t fix was that Luciano Pavarotti was going to be part of the Bobby McFerrin-Busta Rhymes mash-up. But it was too much to explain to his estate, and I couldn’t go to Italy and whatever. It could have been brilliant, Bobby McFerrin and Pavarotti going toe to toe.
The film premieres tonight on NBC and will be available on Peacock starting tomorrow.
