The Royal Family Ball ft. Soulive & Lettuce

Soulive has never made any bones about what they do best; it’s right there in their name. Since forming in 1999, the trio of guitarist Eric Krasno, drummer Alan Evans and keyboardist Neal Evans has carried the torch for the soul-jazz organ trio—that venerable, funky institution pioneered by the likes of Jimmy Smith, Brother Jack McDuff and Groove Holmes in the late ’60s. Rest assured, when the Evans brothers first brought Kraz by their Woodstock studio, there was plenty of old vinyl spread out on the floor.

In their 13 years together, Soulive has followed the muse in the direction of hip-hop, R&B, blues and rock, collaborating with the likes of Chaka Khan, Dave Matthews, Talib Kweli, John Scofield, Derek Trucks, Maceo Parker, Susan Tedeschi, Robert Randolph, Joshua Redman, Kenny Garrett, Fred Wesley, The Roots, Ivan Neville and so many others, even going so far as to record a full album of covers by The Beatles (Rubber Soulive). But, no matter how they push the limits of the organ trio, they always come back to their bread and butter: blistering solos and grooves that don’t quit.

Their latest, a four-track EP entitled, SPARK, deserves a place on your record shelf right between Booker T. and a bottle of some damn good single-malt. Recorded over a day and a half with saxophonist/flautist Karl Denson (The Greyboy Allstars, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe), the record captures the smoky vibe of early-’70s-era CTI Records releases by the likes of Freddie Hubbard, Grover Washington Jr. and George Benson. It’s the stuff Denson grew up on. “I’m older than the Soulive guys,” he says. “When I heard those records being sampled back in the late 80s, early 90s, popping up in clubs when I was over in Europe touring with Lenny Kravitz, that’s what really prepared me for this whole thing we’ve been doing for the last 20 years. It was a natural progression for me to finally do something in the CTI vein.”

Each tune was ultimately just a vehicle for the musicians’ playing, so, sticking to this formula, the quartet used very few overdubs. “Back in that era,” Krasno explains, “you bought a piece of vinyl and it had two tracks on either side. The grooves were kind of dark but really open and each musician got a chance to breathe.” Denson continues: “SPARK is really about the playing, less about the tunes. It’s the four of us collectively getting back to more of a jazzier thing than we’d done in recent memory.”

The first side opens with Yusef Lateef’s sultry “Nubian Lady,” featuring Denson on flute. It was a mutual love for Lateef that brought the quartet together to begin with—Kraz having studied with the legend and Denson having idolized his records. The laid-back tempo lets the group simmer on the theme until Kraz decides to slice the whole thing open with some Middle Eastern fretwork, leaving Karl to pick up the pieces. Denson describes the sound as “Something a little more chilled out but funky at the same time.” “Povo” is a perfect evocation of the era, first recorded by Freddie Hubbard on CTI in 1972, featuring some of Kraz’s most sinewy lines and a caterwauling climax on tenor from Denson. When the two lay out, the Evans brothers remind the listener why an organ and a drum kit have always been plenty good for funky jazz. “We’ve always loved James Brown and music that’s going to make you groove,” says Krasno. “But there’s so much more vocabulary from jazz that you can put in it.” Art Farmer would have agreed. The band’s rendition of his 1972 tune “Soulsides” slips plenty of ideas into the deep pocket, putting Neal Evans out front on piano.

“Spark,” the only original song on the record, was written in homage to legendary soul-jazz guitarist Melvin Sparks, who passed away only days before Soulive entered the studio. Known for his fleet fingers and deft sense of the blues, Sparks made his name backing organists like McDuff and Dr. Lonnie Smith. Krasno grew up listening to Sparks play at a regular gig in New Canaan, CT, and credits the guitarist with inspiring many of his own sensibilities. When Denson asked Sparks to open for the Greyboy Allstars’ first East Coast tour in 1994, it revived his career. “We totally got along and had a great time over the years,” says Denson. Sparks joined Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe to record Dance Lesson No. 2 in 2001 and “just annihilated it. He was a great cat and a total musical mentor.” So, it was with sadness that the four musicians collectively penned the tune and with reverence that they perform the slinky strut, while dedicating the EP to his memory. Denson eulogizes on both flute and tenor while Krasno’s tone impeccably channels the musician he calls, “one of the great guitarists of our time and the coolest dude I knew.”

Celebrating their 20th anniversary as modern day rulers of old school funk, the seven-piece Brooklyn-based juggernaut Lettuce drops their third studio album Fly—a decidedly raging slab of relentless groove, hyper-charged syncopation and psychedelicized soul anthems. Having blown up stages from coast to coast last year, ranging from The Fillmore in SF to Terminal 5 in NYC, Bear Creek Music Festival to Camp Bisco and all points in-between, Lettuce entered Brooklyn recording studio The Bunker this winter with a fresh batch of road-tested material and a revitalized sound honed razor sharp by a year spent on the road.

“We’re more together and set to crush than ever before,” says drummer and chief songwriter Adam Deitch of the all-star group that he and his accomplished band-mates cut their teeth with back in their Berklee School of Music days. That much history, along with the A-list crop of projects that each member has taken on away from Lettuce, gives the group a bottomless well of musical ideas and unrivaled chemistry—in fact, referring to themselves as a band of brothers. “I was in a practice room at 16 with Kraz, Zoidis, Shmeeans and Deitch and it all clicked,” says “lead” bassist Erick “Jesus” Coomes. “We all felt rhythms in similar ways. We were all about the pocket from day one.”

On Fly, the pocket is deeper than ever. “People tend to look at funk as a one-trick pony, “ says Deitch, but the record smashes those limits by drawing on a range of styles that can be traced from the early ’60s through the early ’80s, incorporating plenty of modern hip-hop sensibilities—heavy bass, kick and snare—along the way.

The album’s one cover song, an all-instrumental version of War’s “Slippin’ into Darkness,” is a reminder of the genre’s vintage origins but from there on up, the track progression emphasizes the band’s ability to steer funk in a new direction. “I sketched out a bunch of ideas for songs that I felt would fit each musician perfectly,” says Deitch, leaving plenty of space for each to add their own style to the mix. As a rhythm section, Coomes and Deitch set the pace with a deep and wide pocket. Guitarists Eric Krasno and Adam "Shmeeans" Smirnoff weave electrified six-string rhythms that summon the magic of The JBs' Catfish Collins/Hearlon "Cheese" Martin dual guitar frontline, while Keyboardist Neal "The Hawk" Evans doubles up the low end as he simultaneously floats and stings with jabs of Hammond B3 organ. Riding along in lockstep is saxophonist Ryan "Zwad" Zoidis and trumpeter Rashawn Ross punctuating the Lettuce funk with blasts of big, bold and infectious horn lines, while guest appearances by Brian “BT” Thomas and Cochemea “Cheme” Gastelum further solidify what is already one of the fiercest horn sections of this era. “We try to keep the horn lines simple and melodic, leaving plenty of space for our insanely funky rhythm section to shine,” says Zoidis. “We are always thinking about making people dance.” Soul vocalist Nigel Hall comes in on the Krasno-penned track, “Do It Like You Do” and Charles “Dawg” Haynes provides added percussion on “Let It GOGO.”

Look no further than Fly’s title track, though, for what sets these guys apart. The laid-back vamp, recorded all-analog to two-inch tape, gets full Jamaican studio treatment, dubbed out with vintage reverb and delay. That sort of thing is “only something that Funkadelic might have touched on back in the day,” says Smirnoff. Meanwhile, tracks like “Madison Square” and “Ziggowatt” (Deitch’s ode to legendary Meters’ drummer Zigaboo Modeliste) sound like futuristic cuts from the Stax back catalog. “It’s somewhere between old school and new school,” Zoidis says of the sounds the band was able to achieve with engineer John Davis. Evans’ “Bowler” may be the best evidence of where this supercharged group is headed, with a tasty, stick-in-your-ear melody that continues through the track and begs to be ripped open onstage. “All these experiences as individuals have helped us grow in our own direction, be influenced by more things and have more things to bring to the table as a group,” Smirnoff says. “When you have that many variables, it’s a brand new project every time.”

Having evolved and refocused since 2008’s Rage! without ever dropping the beat, Lettuce is getting ready to take audiences to the cosmos with Fly in the trunk and a high-octane tour on the horizon. “Lettuce is like a Learjet that wasn’t getting clearance from the tower,” says Jesus. “But we’re done just rolling around on the runway.” They’re not asking for permission, so put your tray tables in their full, upright and locked position. This plane’s itching for lift off.