A different Kneebody returns to forefront of jazz fusion scene
When faced with the prospect of replacing an irreplaceable member of the band Kneebody located a singular explanation to the conundrum Over the past two decades the Grammy-nominated group established its own musical niche with a protean chamber improv aesthetic defined by crackling indie rock vigor funky electronica and subtle but conspicuous production concepts inspired by s hip-hop all filtered through masterly jazz chops That volatile mix threatened to come undone when Kneebody s founding bassist Kaveh Rastegar definitively decided to light out on his own as a singer songwriter after a prolific parallel career as a studio musician producer and composer Rather than finding another participant to fill out the quintet keyboardist Adam Benjamin trumpeter Shane Endsley and saxophonist Ben Wendel turned to bandmate Nate Wood who became Kneebody s double-jointed rhythm section As the group s drummer and erstwhile bassist when Rastegar was unavailable Wood came into permanent possession of the second chair Disclosed last month on GroundUP Reach the band s first new studio album since marks Kneebody s relaunch as a quartet with a sleeker more muscular sound Wood doubling on bass was our default mode if Kaveh couldn t be there but we never started writing new tunes from scratch as a quartet reported Endsley on a newest video call with Wendel When we re writing now we re definitely creating material that s less dense and less intricate thinking about not overloading someone playing two instruments The way the band has worked we d tour regularly work out material and then record Wendel added That system got disrupted and put on pause for at least three years Coming back together as a quartet we all felt we can still do this and it s been really fun to work it out with Nate Kneebody reintroduces itself to the region with a series of gigs next week starting Wednesday May at Kuumbwa Jazz Center On Thursday May the band plays the SFJAZZ Center with pianist keyboardist Aaron Parks Little Big quartet The double bill is the concluding concert in the inaugural season of SFJAZZ Executive Artistic Director Terence Blanchard s UpSwing a series that the trumpeter introduced to showcase artists he feels should be better known Kneebody s Bay Area run concludes Friday May with two shows at San Jose Jazz s Break Room Unleashing Wood has ushered in an exciting new phase for a widely influential band that has defined a state-of-the-art jazz idiom deeply engaged with other genres He s spent years emerging his skills playing tandem bass and drums in his solo project fOUR which he s documented with a video series capturing his real-time creation of one-take performances with no prerecorded backing tracks or overdubs He can create this amazing transportive world Endsley disclosed We re just at the beginning of incorporating that new ability The fact that Rastegar anchored Kneebody for so long speaks to the band s potent creative gravitational force as the centrifugal pull of his other pursuits was powerful Deeply enmeshed in the Los Angeles studio scene he s written songs with hitmakers such as Bruno Mars De La Soul Ciara CeeLo Green and Meshell Ndegeocello while touring and recording widely with John Legend including an on-screen appearance with the singer songwriter in the musical La La Land Born in Los Angeles at the turn of the century when Benjamin met Wood at Cal Arts after transferring from the Eastman School of Music where the keyboardist met the other three founders the group corralled and integrated a diverse array of influences and references The instrumentation seemed to connect Kneebody to the Southern California jazz rock fusion legacy of bands like the Yellowjackets but our references are different The music we fell in love with is a bit later hip hop EDM Nirvana Radiohead that s more the stuff that was feeding into the sound mentioned Wendel a prolific Grammy-nominated bandleader and sideman who s featured with pianist Taylor Eigsti s quartet July at the Stanford Jazz Festival What makes Kneebody such a fascinating combo isn t the particular ingredients so much as they way the players have combined them the random alchemy that comes together with five now four people Wendel explained I was raised by an opera chanting mom fully immersed in the classical world I didn t know anything about punk rock and here comes Kaveh who grew up on punk Every person brought their imprint We were all curious about each other s influences and were figuring out approaches to put that in one pot Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe aol com KNEEBODY When where and p m May at San Jose Jazz Break Room San Jose sanjosejazz org
