Inside The Score - Banjo-Kazooie - Mumbo's Barbeque

Reckless celebration

Do the Mumbo!

For his debut as a singer, which is a role he will fulfill even more broadly in the sequel, Mumbo (voiced by Grant Kirkhope himself) treats our heroes and their sensei to an enjoyable cookout party in honor of their deeds—except for Banjo’s own pet goldfish which is the one being cooked. In reality, the singing is still made out of the same chopped speech the character uses to speak—which can literally be characterized as mumbo jumbo—just used in a rhythmic fashion with the tune. Like any other party worth its salt this needs some thrilling dance music to go along with it, Mumbo going back to his roots by choosing the same boogie-woogie style that originally accompanied his level Mumbo’s Mountain alongside the bluesy feel of his own theme tune; the same boogie-woogie which immensely influenced styles such as the surf music that the track flirted with thanks to the palm muted clean electric guitar and the theremin roleplaying as a cool synth, fitting for Banjo too since his original clothing style was that of a surfer dude, which then later was mixed with a rural Appalachian personality (and haircut) thanks to being named after the flagship instrument of the region. The style as a precursor of Rock n Roll, is appropriate for the fun ambient of the gathering, which is sadly interrupted by the party popper common sense of Tooty.

The boogie-woogie uses blues based progressions with characteristic accompaniment figures such as the regular ascending bass pattern that incorporates in some fashion the interplay—mostly back and forth— between the perfect fifth and major sixth intervals, known specifically as a boogie, plus groovy chromatic steps. It is precisely this quality of persistently repeated rhythmic units known as a groove, which has its deepest origins in the trance like rituals of African tribes, what made the style irresistible for dancing and partying in juke joints across the United States, when the spirituals and work songs of African heritage collided with American folk and country from the Appalachians. The style is attested as early as the late 1800s, it was a quite distinctive sound that rang very strange back in those days, clashing with ears accustomed to the classical Western tradition, but it slowly became infectious for the American public, enjoying its heyday in the early ’40s.

Pine Top’s Boogie Woogie cemented the term as the moniker for the genre

Infectious piano playing rhythmic enough that it does not even require drums to be exciting

So clearly, Mumbo Jumbo has a preference for the more modern coalescences of African music as opposed to his tribal counterparts from his village which would be more in line for such a shaman.

Musical Analysis

Structure: {I – ABA’- C} / Section 2

Tempo: 135 / 140

Melodic and Harmonic Profiles: F Ionian/Major; F Blues; F diminished

Besides the style thing, the barbeque music is a 12-bar blues arrangement based on F of the first song made exclusively for the game, the theme that ended up as Click Clock Wood, alongside other stylish blues licks. The melody is played with sliding ornamental notes and trills characteristic of the style by the organ, which has become an entirely new character after its days of being a mournful church organ. Some licks are so ubiquitous as to appear in many tunes, like for example the question-answer phrase above the V chord which just delineates the V7 chord, a phrase that Kirkhope also uses as the main motif for the ‘File Select’ cue of the game Donkey Kong 64. The blues progression is at its simplest form, without common devices such as “quick change”, turnarounds, or seventh chords, just the I – IV – V in the standard order (except for the organ which does use C7).

There is an intro and interludes which are where Mumbo interjects his famous Eekum Bokum familiar to the players who had to constantly collect his Mumbo skulls spread through the worlds of the game; the entire spelling somehow was born out of Grant recording the phrase “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough”, a famous English football chant, and then chopping it out and randomizing it to make it sound like a caveman; in the chromatic steps on this song you can hear the first half of the phrase.

Here we can hear the full composition whereas in the game the clarinet solo is rudely interrupted by Tooty reminding everyone that Gruntilda might possibly still posit a treat, you know, living like less than a block away from them; something not good for the sister’s PTSD. This triggers a disturbing scene where everyone screams, Kazooie hits Banjo on the head as usual due to laziness of finishing the quest and bottles falls down. It is accompanied by a common terror sting where the banjo and the other mallets sustain a Fdim7 that progressively gets higher, with changes following the scene edits that are accentuated by the orchestral percussion. For some reason Mumbo scream is just Gruntilda’s voice pitched down and two banjo voice clips play at the same time between his speech and an exasperated sound effect. Humorously, then Banjo runs back to the lair accompanied by the Turbo trainers cue even though they are not being used, just to convey the sense of urgency of having to go back to the castle; cub power activate. Because even Banjo-Kazooie would not dare to rob us of the solemn video game tradition of the final boss battle.