Is it
funk, is it fusion, is it electronica, is it avant-garde, is it Latin, is it
mellow, is it trad, is it experimental? What is it?
It’s
jazz.
Moreover,
it’s Snarky Puppy’s jazz and it is “the shape of jazz to come”, to quote
Ornette Coleman.
Sometimes
Killer
Opening Songs makes his musical discoveries on his doorstep, as in when he picks
up long-awaited CDs shoved through his letterbox, ordered from evil,
tax-avoiding Amazon. But occasionally, K.O.S. travels far to dig out new
melodies. Far as in going all the way to Glynde Place, near Brighton, in southeastern England, to the Jazz
FM-sponsored Love Supreme festival.
Forget
the hellish journey back home (more than three and a half hours on the road
late at night, including a diversion that added an extra hour to the already
long drive), the memories of Snarky Puppy’s performance more than made up for
any inconvenience suffered. This US band that sprang into the jazz scene in
2004, has been making a lot of noise in the right way ever since, and they have
the rich, eclectic and mind-blowing musical output to back up the buzz they have generated.
The
driving force behind Snarky Puppy is bassist and composer Michael League, yet,
it would be wrong to leave out the other band members. Drummer Robert “Sput”
Searight, who has collaborated with the likes of Snoop Dogg and London-based Bill
Laurance, who has just released a well-received debut album, Flint, are just some of the stars to be found in this combo.
Killer
Opening Song Thing of Gold appears on Snarky Puppy’s 2012
record groundUP, a combined CD and
DVD offer. The track showcases everything that makes this
band the future of jazz to come. Beautiful piano and saxo join forces together
at the beginning of the song to weave a spellbinding tapestry of rhythm patterns.
Strings kick in shortly after and add gravitas to what is already a mesmerising
piece of music. The coup de grâce is
provided by Texas-born keyboardist Shaun Martin who leads the whole ensemble to a hymn-like
finale.
Music
like this is a joy to listen to. Watching the members of Snarky Puppy perform
live at Love Supreme was equally a pleasure to see. And at the centre of it all
lies the key: the Killer Opening Song.
© 2014
Next Post: “Sunday
Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music”, to be published on Sunday 13th
July at 10am (GMT)
