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In: BANDS, BLOG POSTS, Lettuce

Normally this time of year, I’d be prepping my Hulaween preview article.  This fantastic festival was scheduled for October 22-25 but like so many other events has been cancelled due to the coronavirus. My fourth Hulaween was 2018 and I had just started getting into video when I went all out and filmed 16 full or partial sets! Of course, I had seen many other wonderful musicians as well, and had to miss a few due to conflicts. To help with the Hulaween hangover, I’ve compiled all 16 videos from that year along with a couple of comments on whatContinue Reading

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In: Album of the Week, ALBUMS, BLOG POSTS, Lotus

Lotus is one of my favorite bands, live and recorded.  Their style is always morphing, although many would classify them as jamtronica, a mix between electronic and jam. Their latest album, Free Swim just out, is an eclectic mix of styles but stays true to the Lotus core.  Lotus always has both a funk feel and a fusion feel like some of the bands from the 70s (Weather Report) or 80s (Pat Metheny). Free Swim has enough versatility to appeal to those unfamiliar with the band and many throwback styles to please those well indoctrinated. They’re always pushing the edgesContinue Reading

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Our Kind of Movement is a great intro for me to the band Speedometer out of the United Kingdom.  It’s a helluva album with everything a funk fan could want.  Great playing all around from the horns with some great baritone sax work, B3 organ, plucky guitar and bass and pulsating percussion. Our Kind of Movement is Speedometer’s fifth album release for Freestyle (excluding two compilations of archive releases) and the band lays down a hefty dose of new heavy weight funk and soul tunes, as you would expect.  All the tracks are excellent, with Kashmir a personal favorite.  ClickContinue Reading

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In: ALBUMS, BLOG POSTS, Snarky Puppy

Bill Laurance is a longstanding member of Snarky Puppy, and one of the original keys players.  Often identified by fans for his sensual and sensitive playing, he also provides some of the band’s most amazing keys solos. In addition, he an accomplished song writer having penned some of the groups most memorable tunes like Ready Wednesday and 34 Klezma. Bill also has established a very successful career on his own producing four studio albums and three live albums, two of which are reviewed and contrasted here: Bill Laurance Trio at Ronnie Scott’s and Bill Laurance with the WDR Big BandContinue Reading

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Jazz, funk, fusion and power trios hold a unique place in my view.  Out of necessity, each player needs to be exceptionally strong and bring a depth of sound as there’s little margin for error.  Two of the more recent memorable trios are Medeski, Martin and Wood and Soulive. Here’s a brief rundown of twelve (ok, thirteen) terrific trios, most of whom I’ve been able to see and record and I’d highly recommend each one for your playlist. Consider the Source is the ultimate power trio with Gabe on double neck fretted and fretless guitar, John an unbelievable force onContinue Reading

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In: ALBUMS, Snarky Puppy

This album is a great finale to the Immigrance 2019 tour in much the same way North Sea was in 2018 for the 2-year Culcha Vulcha tour. The production values are stellar with extra clear engineering nearly on par with studio album. The audience sound is notable in that it is absent from the recording except at precisely the right times – end of solos or end of songs.  Not sure if this is part of the mixing or the audience was actually that in tune. The sound was big since there were thirteen band members instead of the usualContinue Reading

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In: ALBUMS, BANDS, Lettuce

After more than twenty years together, Lettuce is the preeminent funk band on the scene today.  Starting with their friendship at Berklee College of Music, they’ve shaped their sound from classic funkers of yesteryear like James Brown and Tower of Power but put their own new fresh spin on things. Going back 10 years or more the band did not tour very much and released a studio album every few years.  For the last several years, the band has been touring non-stop (pre COVID-19) and has become much more prolific in jam-funk-jazz improvisation and in recording albums.  Resonate is theContinue Reading

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In: Aisle 5, BANDS, BLOG POSTS, Lettuce, Lotus, Snarky Puppy, Terminal West, The Budos Band, The New Mastersounds, Variety Playhouse, VENUES, Voodoo Visionary

For FunkCity.net, 2019 was a remarkable year that is recapped here.  I apologize in advance for the self-serving nature but it was definitely a year like no other in my experience based on a combination of personal music achievements and fantastic music events.  It was a huge year for four of my favorite groups, Snarky Puppy, Lettuce, The New Mastersounds and The Budos Band! Here’s the nineteen top happenings in 2019 – Snarky Puppy 17 Compilation: The year started with my proudest musical moment – Snarky Puppy came out with a limited edition, 4-vinyl recap of their 2017 world tour. Continue Reading

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In: BANDS, BLOG POSTS, Snarky Puppy

Many thanks to Matt Recchia, Snarky Puppy Sound Engineer for providing the overall tour stats and for making this full writeup possible. Snarky Puppy, the three-time Grammy winning, funk-jazz-world-instrumental ensemble just wrapped their 123 date world tour in support of their excellent 2019 release Immigrance. The tour spanned four continents, 26 countries and 38 of the 50 states in the U.S. This article reviews some of the highlights of the tour and also details the recorded shows posted at LiveSnarky.com for fans that want to purchase specific show downloads based on song or personnel preferences. As usual, Snarky Puppy rotatesContinue Reading

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In: BANDS, BLOG POSTS

House of Waters is a band you may not have heard of but they play some of the most beautiful music you’ll ever hear. This band bounces between jazz, funk, world, Irish, Indian, African and even classical music at times and their music well deserves its own genre. (That happens to be one of the topics discussed in this interview. We chatted with the “power” trio of Max ZT (hammered dulcimer), Moto Fukushima (6 string bass) and Ignacio Rivas Bixio (drums) before their opening session with Snarky Puppy at The Tabernacle in Atlanta on September 20. The far ranging discussionContinue Reading