Cortez the Killer is a song by Neil Young for his album Zuma (1975). You can see his live version of it here. It also is worth your time.
I didn’t know the song when I came across this video. Having discovered Grace Potter from her Nocturnals music, this popped up in my YouTube feed. As I am also a fan of Joe Satriani, I had to check it out.
One of the really cool things is that neither Potter, nor Satriani, are the best part of the video. Those kudos belong to the trumpet player, Willy Waldman. How the heck do you play the trumpet from the side of your mouth? And played this hard without busting a blood vessel?
As far as I can tell, this was not a long term band that played together. I can’t find evidence of this group of musicians playing together any other time (but, in fairness, I didn’t look too hard — let me know if you know otherwise).
The thing that is most impressive to me, is that a set of musicians, who all know the same legendary song, can play together and jam out seamlessly. I’m sure they rehearsed but probably not much.
I’m also drawn to the emotion from the musicians, as they watch one another, lost in the music. You can see this around the four minute mark in the video.
The entire Music Is Magic playlist can be found here.
Neil Young awesome song
Musicians playing with heart
Tighter than a drum