When confronted with the prospect of changing an irreplaceable member of the band, Kneebody discovered a singular answer to the conundrum.
Over the previous 20 years the Grammy-nominated group established its personal musical area of interest with a protean chamber improv aesthetic outlined by crackling indie rock vitality, funky electronica and refined however conspicuous manufacturing ideas impressed by Nineties hip-hop, all filtered via masterly jazz chops.
That risky combine threatened to return undone when Kneebody’s founding bassist, Kaveh Rastegar, lastly determined to mild out on his personal as a singer/songwriter after a prolific parallel profession as a studio musician, producer, and composer. Moderately than discovering one other participant to fill out the quintet, keyboardist Adam Benjamin, trumpeter Shane Endsley and saxophonist Ben Wendel turned to bandmate Nate Wooden, who turned Kneebody’s double-jointed rhythm part.
Because the group’s drummer and erstwhile bassist when Rastegar was unavailable, Wooden got here into everlasting possession of the second chair. Launched final month on GroundUP, “Reach,” the band’s first new studio album since 2019, marks Kneebody’s relaunch as a quartet with a sleeker, extra muscular sound.
Wooden 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,” stated Endsley on a latest video name 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 area with a collection of gigs subsequent week, beginning Wednesday, Could 21 at Kuumbwa Jazz Middle. On Thursday Could 22 the band performs the SFJAZZ Middle with pianist/keyboardist Aaron Parks’ Little Massive quartet.
The double invoice is the concluding live performance within the inaugural season of SFJAZZ Government Creative Director Terence Blanchard’s UpSwing, a collection that the trumpeter launched to showcase artists he feels ought to be higher recognized. Kneebody’s Bay Space run concludes Friday, Could 23 with two exhibits at San Jose Jazz’s Break Room.
Unleashing Wooden has ushered in an thrilling new section for a extensively influential band that has outlined a state-of-the-art jazz idiom deeply engaged with different genres. He’s spent years creating his abilities taking part in tandem bass and drums in his solo mission fOUR, which he’s documented with a video collection capturing his real-time creation of one-take performances with no prerecorded backing tracks or overdubs.
“He can create this amazing, transportive world,” Endsley stated. “We’re just at the beginning of incorporating that new ability.”
The truth that Rastegar anchored Kneebody for therefore lengthy speaks to the band’s potent artistic gravitational power, because the centrifugal pull of his different pursuits was highly effective. Deeply enmeshed within the Los Angeles studio scene, he’s written songs with hitmakers reminiscent of Bruno Mars, De La Soul, Ciara, CeeLo Inexperienced, and Meshell Ndegeocello, whereas touring and recording extensively with John Legend (together with an on-screen look with the singer/songwriter within the 2016 musical “La La Land”).
Born in Los Angeles on the flip of the century when Benjamin met Wooden at Cal Arts after transferring from the Eastman College of Music (the place the keyboardist met the opposite three founders), the group corralled and built-in a various array of influences and references.
The instrumentation appeared to attach Kneebody to the Southern California jazz/rock fusion legacy of bands just 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,” stated Wendel, a prolific, Grammy-nominated bandleader and sideman who’s featured with pianist Taylor Eigsti’s quartet July 31 on the Stanford Jazz Competition.
What makes Kneebody such a captivating combo isn’t the actual substances a lot as they means the gamers have mixed them, “the random alchemy that comes together with five, now four, people,” Wendel stated.
“I was raised by an opera singing 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 ways to put that in one pot.”
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
KNEEBODY
When & the place: 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Could 23 at San Jose Jazz Break Room, San Jose; $35; sanjosejazz.org.
