My New Years resolution... try to record at least 1 song per week.
This week... "Baghdad Blues", by me, Steve Mohacey
In November 2005, I deployed with the 4th Infantry Division Band to Baghdad, Iraq as part of OIF 05-7. I post this information only to put in context where and when I wrote this song. I hope everyone will lay aside their personal feelings about the rightness or wrongness of the war. I do not want this post to become political fodder. It's just about this song and the guys whom I wrote it for and who first played it so long ago (almost 20 years now!).
While in Iraq, the band was tasked with many different duties and assignments. But the ONE assignment that kept us all going was this: we had a MUSICAL mission. Our little band of 37 (I believe that is correct... it's been a long time) musicians would head out to even the most remote Forward Operating Bases (FOB) and bring high quality, live musical entertainment, to our troops (the GREATEST audiences you could EVER play music for by the way). We wanted to bring them a few moments of peace, even if only for an hour. This was hazardous, as we had to get from point A to point B. During my time in Iraq, we travelled more than 25,000 miles, through the most dangerous terrain on Earth at the time. But.. I did it with some of the most talented, and certainly most committed to Soldier-Musicians ever assembled.
While many of our comrades were blogging about their time in Iraq, we decided to write music and create a musical blog of our experiences. My musical partners in jazz crimes, Joshua Distefano (keys), Chris Kerley (bass), Brian Archer (drums/sound), and I got busy writing music. We wrote so much music that we even recorded an album of Josh's music WHILE in Iraq during our scarce downtime.
"Baghdad Blues" was inspired by the sounds of the Mosque calls that we would hear in the mornings and evenings. Josh and I were always trying to figure out what notes they were singing. I'm sure we made everyone crazy while we were trying to put those sounds on our instruments and into our music. Those sounds, which I will NEVER forget, eventually made their way into our music. As you listen to this song, imagine you are starting your day in Iraq. You are prepping the people and the gear to move out and take music to one of the FOBs. You make your way through Baghdad. Soon, you are playing some banging jazz... but before you know it, the show is over. And then it's "rinse and repeat" time. Off to the next mission.
I REALLY wanted to use real tracks to create the entire recording. But there were so many written lines that it proved impossible. So, here is what I did:
I wrote the song and used Finale to save and engrave it. I had Finale generate a drum groove over the "head" of my song. I saved the individual tracks from the arrangement in finale to .mid files. I recorded myself on Soprano sax throughout the song. I assigned the following sounds included in Logic Pro to cover the other "head" tracks (00:27 - 01:32 AND 03:12 - 04:16). I used the Turkish Saz Zither, Slap & Pop, British Stack Synth Lead, and SoCal sounds.
The middle, "weird and freaky" section was all Apple Loops.
The cool "funky" solo section is all Band in A Box:
Memo: This RealStyle features a tight and funky horn section playing over electric piano, guitar, slap bass, and drums. -Examples: Get Up Offa That Thing, Get On The Good Foot, Papas Got A Brand New Bag, Genre "Intensity" Score=82/100 _DUPER.STY. Duper Funky Horns All RealTracks. Quintet. Tempo=110 (85-135) Instruments: El.Bass, El.Piano, El.Guitar, HornSection, Drums RD: FunkHalfNoteSync: a: Snare, Kick b: Busy Kick :Michael White RT2607: Bass, Electric, ModernSlapFunkAlex Ev16 110 , Alex Al RT2526: Piano, Electric, Rhythm FunkTremolo Ev16 100 , Jeff Young RT2525: Guitar, Electric, Rhythm FunkWahWahChords Ev16 100 , Greg Moore RT4416: Horn Section, Background Funk16thsChris Ev 110 , Chris West
The saxophone was recorded using a Sennheiser 441 with the "FETHEAD" to boost the gain. The Sennheiser 441 is a dynamic mic. The Fethead gives it a 27db bump via the pre-amp built into my Focusrite Clarett++ 2pre. Dynamic mics do not require phantom power. The FETHEAD uses phantom power to boost the gain and just plugs into the XLR out on my mic.
Backing tracks via Band In A Box 2025 Ultrapak Plus for Mac.
Recorded in Logic Pro 11.
Selmer Selmer Series III Soprano Sax. Mouthpiece- Bobby Dukoff 8* . Boston Sax Shop Black Box 3 reeds (the BEST REEDS EVER!).
Filmed on iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Sennheiser HD 620s closed back headphones (these things are AWESOME).
Ivy! Cool and very funky. Nicely played, arranged and mixed! Loved the playing-in-uniform pic.
Army bands have improved a TON of morale and built another ton or two of goodwill over the years. Sadly, many have been disbanded since 2005, which was SO shortsighted...
DC Ron BiaB Audiophile Presonus Studio One ASUS I9-12900K DAW, 32 GB RAM Presonus Faderport 16 Too many guitars (is that a thing?)
You have some serious chops on the sax. I don't often write music with a sax but if I do, I'll know who to call.
The bottom of the rhythm section sounds good on my system here in the studio with the sub
Guitarhacker-
Yeah... heavy on the funk. But it was a blues progression. I'm glad you liked the groove. Also glad to hear that the bottom end sounded good on a sub. I don't have one here. Still working on getting better at EQ. Just started playing with panning. Recording is a serious rabbit hole :-)
Ivy! Cool and very funky. Nicely played, arranged and mixed! Loved the playing-in-uniform pic.
Army bands have improved a TON of morale and built another ton or two of goodwill over the years. Sadly, many have been disbanded since 2005, which was SO shortsighted...
DC-
I am unsure how many Soldiers I played for over my 22 year career. But I can tell you, when we showed up at one of those tiny FOBs (and I mean tiny... maybe just a platoon), they were just fantastic. Those guys were so appreciative. I mean, how often do you play a Pat Metheny tune and have a 18 year kid from Boston ask, "Who wrote that? That's the coolest music I've ever heard."
When I came into the Army, we had 62 active duty bands world wide. Now there are only 16.
All those photos were from Iraq. Yes, we did have other duties.. not very pleasant and not worth talking about. But, we also kept our musical mission... a testament to the high level of musicianship of my fellow Soldiers. I wish I had recordings of the groups (we did everything from Woodwind Quintets, Jazz Quartet, 3 Rock Bands, Country Band (we opened for Charlie Daniels... at the big FOB Camp Liberty. He didn't go to the far flung, tiny places), and full on Salsa band w/horns). This Army band was LOADED with talent.
Thanks for giving it a listen. Just exercising a few demons as I approach the 20th anniversary of our deployment.
Wow! What a trip! Love all the textures, the obvious attention to detail. I esp liked that step-wise section with the tight interval harmony. Great track. I've recently been diving back into Don Ellis video's, and this reminded me of that approach of blending jazz arrangements with Eastern/MidEastern flavors. I'm so impressed by your use of the software tools...I didn't realize that Finale was anything more than a notation system--my impression from 25 years ago! Glad to see you back active again!
Windows 11, Intel Core i5-8600T 2.3Ghz, 16 gig ram, BIAB 2025 MegaPak, SampleTank 4, Keystation49 Kybd, Neewer NW-800 mic
Wow! What a trip! Love all the textures, the obvious attention to detail. I esp liked that step-wise section with the tight interval harmony. Great track. I've recently been diving back into Don Ellis video's, and this reminded me of that approach of blending jazz arrangements with Eastern/MidEastern flavors. I'm so impressed by your use of the software tools...I didn't realize that Finale was anything more than a notation system--my impression from 25 years ago! Glad to see you back active again!
Tom-
I wrote this back in the early Spring of 2006. Finale will generate "drum grooves". When I wrote the song, I didn't need to generate anything more than a lead sheet. We were in Iraq... we had time to rehearse and come up with a groove that fit the song. Writing drum parts is a major pain, so I copped out and just let Finale generate a track for the recording.
I've been staying active staying recording (with BIAB). Just not any of the original material (what I have left to record is highly arranged). Now that I have the plan figured out how to get those parts tracked, I'll have some more dropping here soon.
Thanks for having me work with your "Promises" project. Enjoyed the song and the challenge of remote recording.
Absolutely brilliant piece of music. I have CDs of world music and love the saz and other Arabic & Turkic instruments. A pity that BiaB doesn't have any. You've 100% captured the Mid-East flavour with the sax.
Some favourite Waoist Adages: #1: Play on the Way. #13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you. #58: Bring consciousness to it. #63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made. #92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
This is so freakin' cool!! I absolutely love it. I often listen to Zikr, so I already love those Arabian sounds. And I love a good funky beat. How you managed to put those two together blows me away. I bow to you, sir. This was truly delightful.
Absolutely brilliant piece of music. I have CDs of world music and love the saz and other Arabic & Turkic instruments. A pity that BiaB doesn't have any. You've 100% captured the Mid-East flavour with the sax.
WaoBand-
Thanks for giving it a listen. Maybe BiaB will put out an Xtra Styles PAK with those sounds for World Music.
This is so freakin' cool!! I absolutely love it. I often listen to Zikr, so I already love those Arabian sounds. And I love a good funky beat. How you managed to put those two together blows me away. I bow to you, sir. This was truly delightful.
BYOBand-
Thanks so much! Always nice to get such positive feedback.
I've hardly been here since my wife passed away in May. More than delighted I got back to hear this.
What a great mix of cultural sounds. You sure know your way around those keypads! truly love how you mixed all the sounds and sections. That was a great listen!
BTW, I was with the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. It wasn't quite as nice as your visit with them! Got a couple scars to remind me once in a while.
I've hardly been here since my wife passed away in May. More than delighted I got back to hear this.
What a great mix of cultural sounds. You sure know your way around those keypads! truly love how you mixed all the sounds and sections. That was a great listen!
BTW, I was with the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. It wasn't quite as nice as your visit with them! Got a couple scars to remind me once in a while.
Impressive, to say the least. You kept up with those arpeggios with no problem, that would've shut me down good. Great work.
TuneMonger-
Thanks for giving my song a listen. I've played it out live more than a few times in the last 20 years. Unfortunately, never had a chance to get a decent quality recording. Thanks to Band in a Box, that dream has been realized.
Last Chance! The Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac® Special Ends Today (May 31, 2026) at 11:59pm PDT!
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
Playable RealTracks Set 5
RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
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MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
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