Getting into the groove
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New music on InfoLine
To hear samples from some local "jam bands," call The Seattle Times InfoLine at 206-464-2000 and enter category JAMB (5262). It's free in the Seattle area.
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For a certain new, buzz-attracting subclass of Seattle bands, it's not about the magnetism of a charismatic lead singer. There are no lead singers. It's a pure instrumental vibe, extended way past the limits of three-minute, three-chord pop. For these bands, it's all about . . .
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It's Friday night, in the back room of Seattle's Sit & Spin, and the place is jammed. Patrons wade through the crowd, beers held high over their heads. Half the audience is dancing - in couples, groups or alone - in a flowing, free-form style. One woman, eyes closed, arms flailing, never stops; she is allowed a wide berth. Other folks peer intently at Hanuman, the acoustic quartet on stage, trying to catch every note.
The mandolin player tears into a solo, fingers dancing. The crowd follows his zigzag path through the Blue Ridge Mountains, then applauds mightily as he takes a southeast turn toward Mississippi, applying a bluesy, bottleneck slide. The guitar takes up where the mandolin left off, offering glimpses of dawn on the delta. Then it's the drummer's turn. Keeping the beat with an ankle rattle, he stomps on the stage as he paddles an African hand-drum. Before the audience can finish clapping, the bass player takes up the call, quieting the room with a long, doleful solo. The crowd continues to bob and weave.
Wait a minute. Isn't there something missing from this picture? This is Friday night in a club full of dancers, right? So where's the singer? Don't all popular bands need vocalists? And what's up with all these long, improvised solos? Isn't that jazz? Nobody dances to jazz. They sit and look serious, and sip scotch.
Is something new going on here?
Yes, and it already has a name. It's Seattle's thriving "jam band" scene. Over the past couple of years, in the wake of the national popularity of Medeski, Martin and Wood, Phish and others - but also with a particular Seattle history of its own - half a dozen groups have sprung up that play long, improvised sets of instrumental groove music. They have garnered a loyal audience that follows them from club to club, and, sometimes, from state to state, as they begin to gain regional - and even national - attention.
"All of these bands draw really well," says Dave Meinert, who books acts for the Sit & Spin, as well as advising Bumbershoot on rock. "And they all tour. Jumbalaya's (another local star of the genre) one of the biggest club nights in the city."
Though "jam band" is a loose term that cuts a wide swath - groups based in everything from bluegrass to hip-hop have been tossed into the new bag - it's a useful rubric for a new trend. The basic ingredients owe a lot to jazz: long, instrumental solos and improvised material. But jam bands, unlike jazz groups, play grooves that make you want to shake, and have a playfulness that jazz lost when it became a "serious" art form.
On the rock side, ground zero for jam bands is the Grateful Dead, which long delighted in open-ended, improvised sets. But the funk jams of George Clinton, world-music marathons and instrumental dance music such as drum 'n' bass, have warmed up listeners' ears for the new form, as well.
For many people, jam music is the perfect combination of intellectual and physical energy, as well as an organic, downscale relief from corporate rock.
"They want to dance," says John Kessler, a DJ at KPLU and bassist in 4 Out of 5 Doctors, another instrumental group. "They don't want to hear grunge, but they want to have that pumping energy. This instrumental rock / jazz stuff really provides that."
Major labels have begun to take note. Not only Phish and Medeski, Martin and Wood, but Charlie Hunter, Soulive, String Cheese Incident and the Jazz Mandolin Project all have national contracts. In Seattle, the three jam bands that just might break nationally are Rockin' Teenage Combo, Hanuman and Living Daylights.
Of those, Rockin' Teenage Combo is the quirkiest - not a surprise, given that their name comes from '60s experimental rocker Frank Zappa's habit of jokingly introducing his group with that moniker.
With its organ-trio setup, mind-tripping sound excursions and preference for funk and hip-hop-inspired beats, Rockin' Teenage Combo is the closest thing locally to Medeski, Martin and Wood. It also owes a lot in spirit to the bright, peppy '80s British jazz-dance movement (later called acid jazz). The band started almost by accident.
"I was living in a studio above (drummer) Oliver Klomp," recalls bassist Paul "P.K." Kemmish, "in January of '96. He said, `You want to get together and practice some jazz?' I said, `I don't know anything about jazz,' and he said, `Neither do I!' "
When they got a weekly gig with keyboardist Dara Quinn (who had been working with the steel-drum street band, Bakra Bata), no one at the OK Hotel seemed to care about their jazz credentials. They were an immediate hit. When Klomp and Kemmish had a falling out in 1999, current drummer Jason McGerr, a drum teacher at the Seattle Drum School, joined the group.
One of the Rockin' Teenage Combo's charms is McGerr's ability to play in odd meters with graceful ease, as he does on P.K.'s attractive tune, "Dave David," which rocks back and forth between 5 / 4 and 6 / 4 time. That's not a particularly familiar beat for dancers who are used to the standard rock 'n' roll time, 4 / 4. On a recent Wednesday night at the Rainbow, delighted revelers seemed to have no trouble negotiating the time change.
Outside Seattle, the Combo has begun to make an impact, touring the West Coast, and last year playing the huge four-day, 4th of July weekend High Sierra Festival, in Bear Valley, Calif., where jam bands rule. The group has made three albums: "Songs From the Smoking Section," "Mr. Birdy's Fryday" and "6 / 4 Getaway."
Kemmish stresses that, for all their experimentation with crazy keyboard sounds and weird time signatures, "groove is the big thing."
The 4-year-old Hanuman quartet grooves, too, but in a completely different way, working a bluegrass / world-music crossroads where mandolin ace David Grisman and the Grateful Dead meet. Hanuman, named for a Hindu monkey god, started as a trio, then evolved into a quartet last year, with percussionist Jarrod Kaplan, guitarist Paul Benoit, mandolin ace Scott Law and acoustic bassist Tige DeCoster.
Kaplan, with his dreadlocks, African djembe drum and ankle rattles, provides the group's visual focus, as well as its driving beat, and the authoritative string-playing of the bluesy Benoit and the bluegrassy Law keep musical interest high, whether they are playing tunes drawn from Appalachia or India. The band recently did 36 gigs in 41 days, from Seattle to Washington, D.C., and back, and has sold 2,500 copies of its new CD, "Pedalhorse." The group recently bought a used, 15-passenger van from Metro, and hopes to use it for national tours.
For 33-year-old Kaplan, Hanuman's fusion of world traditions translates into a sense of social mission that is prevalent on the national jam-band scene. Indeed, jam-band music, with its focus on organic development and human-scale venues, is the soundtrack for the Green Party and the anti-globalization crowd.
"Music that brings together people from all different backgrounds is a very unifying thing," declares Kaplan. "If music can bring a large audience together, then the world could be a better place."
The Seattle jam band closest to national success - they also recently bought a Metro van, but they've already toured the country in it - is the astonishingly tight and explosive Living Daylights. Jessica Lurie (saxophone), Arne Livingston (electric bass) and Dale Fanning (drums) began playing informally in 1992, when Lurie moved back to Seattle after completing a music degree at Wesleyan University. Profoundly influenced by African drumming and avant-garde jazz, Lurie began writing aggressive tunes with circular, repetitive patterns, sometimes in odd meters, with room for noisy improv. In Fanning and her old high-school pal Livingston, she found the perfect soul mates.
In 1995, the Daylights recorded a CD, "Falling Down Laughing," and that same year were invited to open for Wayne Shorter at the Earshot Jazz Festival. Since then, the band has played the East Coast four times, including a couple of gigs opening for John Scofield. They've toured Europe three times, and their latest album, whose title, "Electric Rosary," brilliantly evokes the sound and spirit of their music, was produced by Bay Area ace Lee Townsend, famous for his work with guitarist Bill Frisell. (Frisell appears as a guest on the Daylights album). The disc netted a four-star review (out of five) in Down Beat magazine, the jazz bible, and major labels are starting to nibble.
"We're touring really hard now," Lurie recently reported from the road. "The buzz is on with the press. Now we just need the ear of the big guys."
Like most jammers, and a lot of young people, Lurie loves jazz but hates the stuffy atmosphere that has grown up around it. She thinks bands with a groove just might bring the young crowd back to jazz. In Seattle, the idea of making jazz fun again traces its roots to groups such as Wayne Horvitz's Zony Mash, Tim Young's Very Special Forces and the various aggregations formed around funk master saxophonist Skerik, such as Critters Buggin' and Crack Sabbath.
Other local bands that fit into the jam jar, more or less, are the electronic-music trio, Elektrochakra, the more song-oriented but very funky 4 Out of 5 Doctors, the noisy but often interesting Jackhammer Trio, the world-fusion group Guarneri Underground, the seldom-seen Flowmotion and Blue Glove Club, and the folks over at the Baltic Room who call their Friday-night hip-hop jam Jumbalaya.
But whatever genre they spring from, all these groups share a sense of music as something fun and inspirational that unfolds before your eyes.
"You get the sense that the band is right there with you, and you're experiencing it in the moment," says P.K.
"The scene has really grown in Seattle," says Lurie, "and it's a wonderful thing. It's really pumped a lot of new life into the audience."
Some jam-band gigs
coming up:
Living Daylights: Nov. 22 (all-night show), The Sit & Spin, 2219 Fourth Ave., Seattle, 206-441-9484.
Jumbalaya: Friday nights, Baltic Room, 1207 Pine St., Seattle, 206-625-4444.
Hanuman: Dec. 8, Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., Seattle, 206-789-3599.
Rockin' Teenage Combo, Living Daylights: Dec. 15, OK Hotel, 212 Alaskan Way S., Seattle, 206-621-7903.