Q: What is a Kneebody?
A: It’s the name of a band whose amalgam of jazz, funk, electronica, beats, progressive rock and unheard sounds is so unclassifiable that no known word could adequately describe it.
On paper, the band, which returns to BOP STOP for a Sunday performance, has the canonical jazz formation of trumpet, tenor saxophone, keyboards, bass and drums. On stage Kneebody explodes genre categories.
Horns sound like synths and synths like guitars. Electronic effects warp and bend the sound of Shane Endsley’s trumpet and Ben Wendel’s tenor saxophone. Adam Benjamin’s keyboard arsenal, especially his Wurlitzer piano, favors lo-fi tone colors, dirty and smudged. The bass and drums shudder and thwack with heavy backbeats and are mixed hot. Oh, and they’re both played, simultaneously, by Nate Wood, who gave a preview of his one-man-band project at the Hingetown club last October.
photocredit: Gilad Hekselman
At this point, it’s time for another question: what is a knucklehead? A: a clueless person, say, a writer who has a memorable convo with a busy member of a high-profile band but forgets to press record. That’s me, folks.
So there will be no direct quotes from here from Endsley, who was the generous and forthcoming subject of that interview. That’s a shame, because our conversation ranged widely and was full of insights and meaty quotes. Apologies to him and, dear reader, to you.
But everything you need to know about Kneebody you can hear on Reach, the band’s new recording on GroundUP Music, a label founded by Snarky Puppy’s Michael League. It’s a fitting home for the band whose music shares the Puppy’s adrenalized, almost arena-ready energy and come-as-you-are stylistic approach.
Sunday’s concert marks the third BOP STOP appearance for the band, but the first since founding bassist Kaveh Rastegar left to pursue other projects shortly before the pandemic halted live performances everywhere.
If the Kneebody head count was reduced, the band’s cohesion and unanimity of purpose remained intact–as well it should. These guys have been playing together for 24 years now, having first come together in Los Angeles.
Kneebody was one of the last touring bands to play the Hingetown club, arriving about a month before the venue went dark. Endsley, who spoke with me from his office at Denver’s Metropolitan State University, recalled the gig fondly, praising the club’s sound and the enthusiasm of the crowd. And he confirmed that Wood’s bass and drums were recorded live in the studio on Reach, not overdubbed. What you hear on record is what you’ll get live: the formal and instrumental command of high-level improvisation delivered at the fever pitch of a punk show. A mosh pit would not be out of place.
You might have heard a preview of this approach if you were at a 2023 BOP STOP concert by Wendel’s quartet that included Wood, pianist Taylor Eigsti and bassist Harish Raghavan that I reviewed for All About Jazz here.
At that show, Wendel announced that the band would do something out of the ordinary. “We’re going to play on ‘Rhythm’ changes,” he said, seemingly surprised himself. Kneebody, too, trades in the unexpected. It’s music that hits you in the head and the body
Kneebody, Sunday, May 4, 7 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave, Cleveland, Tickets $25, available here.
NOTE: This article was written by a real human being. No artificial intelligence or generative language models were used in its creation.
Red beans and ricely yours,
jc
