by Daniel Lehner
In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, saxophonist Ben Wendel seemed perplexed that people were using Kneebody as a descriptor (e.g., “kind of a ‘Kneebody’ thing”). But one would be truly hard pressed to find another band with quite the same fearless mix of sounds, a pallette that covers acoustic and electronic, groovy and disjointed, tongue-in-cheek and serious (who else can say they’ve recorded an album of Charles Ives compositions and played entire concerts with rapper Busdriver?). Functioning as one of the true “bands” in the jazz world, Kneebody both cleaved and congealed each member’s sonic input into singular expressions.
Along with The Bad Plus, Kneebody is one of the few working jazz groups that understand the true art of playing loud. The group puts tension and release into action in both volume and content; in an untitled original (tentatively titled “Ben Five” by bassist Kaveh Rastegar), the group celebrated a long climb through a funky yet mysterious sax-drum duo, increasingly persistent trumpet lines and a frenzied rhythm section entrance with a loud and triumphant release. Their previously recorded “Dr. Beauchef Penguin Dentist” had the same aesthetic, wherein the toggle between the sputtering, James-Brown-from-space horn hits and the rolling groove finally meet up. Kneebody’s comfort in their masterful funk allowed them to play as aggressively as they wanted. In “Blue, Yellow and White”, this was no easy task; it took a tempered control of electrically manipulated sounds to keep everything from going haywire (unless of course, they wanted that to happen).
Kneebody’s heavily amplified sound provides both strong melodic content and spacey electronic atmospheres. Keyboardist Adam Benjamin’s “Unforeseen Influences” recalled a bit of the quirky simplicity of Thelonious Monk and Albert Ayler’s melodies, the rhythm section providing crooked grooves around the horn melody. Benjamin’s ring-modulated Rhodes sound broke the barrier between noise and tonality, making clear musical statements while keeping a steely, robotic sense of abandon. The band often times fills the composition with lots of sound and then “clears the air”, in one instance letting trumpet player Shane Endsley get in on the ambient soundscape by doing some Kaoss pad live sampling.
None of this would be possible, of course, without the band’s superb musicianship. Endsley’s solos were expressive as they were non-derivative, using the same tried-and-true techniques of building a well-organized solo without dipping into clichés. Rastegar is equally as unparalleled as a bassist if only for how he incorporates everything from deep pocket grooves and hardcore punk slumming. Wendel incorporates his incendiary energy into Kneebody’s music nicely and what’s most remarkable is one can hear loads of historical influence. Benjamin’s sense of both aggressive and lyrical textures is a crucial component on Kneebody’s sound, as are Nate Wood’s impossibly versatile control of the drum set. The band grooves, shouts, pulsates, contemplates – and, most importantly, has fun while doing it.