Believe it or not, there are still people out there who’ve never heard Prince’s 1999, and it turns out that pianist Jesus Molina is one of them.
This became apparent when Pianote played the Colombian Berklee graduate the song with just the drums and vocals and asked Molina to fill in the blanks. And fill them in he most certainly did.
“The drums are really old,” he says on hearing that famous Linn LM-1 pattern, which makes us feel pretty ancient, too. Molina, though, is only 27, and to him, 1999, sounds like a relic from another time.
No matter, because after just one listen through, he’s ready to perform his own arrangement, and it’s fair to say that it’s busier than the original. Molina fills the musical space with jazzy, gospel-tinged licks while respecting the song’s original groove.
“This is actually what I try to do when I practise every single day,” says Molina of the reharmonisation challenge that Pianote set him. “I just put myself on the spot all the time. That’s the most important thing - new experiences, new melodies… that’s when creativity develops really fast.”
