During our temporary closure, we’re digging deep into the Band on the Wall archive to pick out some of our favourite recordings from gigs gone by. For our weekly Live-ish session, we’ll be broadcasting a full archive gig ‘as live’ for you to watch along. So tune in here at 7pm every Friday evening!
7pm Friday 1st May – Snarky Puppy
A one-off opportunity to watch a full live set from Snarky Puppy, the three-time Grammy-winning genre-defying collective, recorded in 2012 at Band on the Wall.
As the category names for all three of the band’s Grammy® awards would indicate (Best R&B Performance in 2014, Best Contemporary Instrumental Album in 2016 and 2017), Snarky Puppy isn’t exactly a jazz band. It’s not a fusion band, and it’s definitely not a jam band. It’s probably best to take Nate Chinen of the New York Times’ advice, as stated in an online discussion about the group, to “take them for what they are, rather than judge them for what they’re not.”
Snarky Puppy is a collective of sorts with as many as 25 members in regular rotation. They each maintain busy schedules as sidemen (with such artists as Erykah Badu, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and D’Angelo), producers (for Kirk Franklin, David Crosby, and Salif Keïta), and solo artists (many of whom are on the band’s indy label, GroundUP Music). At its core, the band represents the convergence of both black and white American music culture with various accents from around the world. Japan, Argentina, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Puerto Rico all have representation in the group’s membership. But more than the cultural diversity of the individual players, the defining characteristic of Snarky Puppy’s music is the joy of performing together in the perpetual push to grow creatively.
The band was formed by bassist and primary composer Michael League in 2003, starting inconspicuously enough as a group of college friends at the University of North Texas’ Jazz Studies program. Three years later, a serendipitous intersection with the Dallas gospel and R&B community in Dallas transformed the music into something funkier, more direct, and more visceral. It was at this time that the group absorbed musicians like Robert “Sput” Searight (drums), Shaun Martin (keyboards), and Bobby Sparks (keyboards), and were heavily influenced by legendary keyboardist Bernard Wright (Miles Davis, Chaka Khan, Marcus Miller).
This stream is free to watch, but these are extremely difficult times for an independent non-profit organisation like Band on the Wall, so any and all donations are welcome and enormously helpful.
Click on the video to open in YouTube and leave us your comments!
To start the stream, hit play on the embedded YouTube Live video.