Soul-Survivors

The overwhelming success of the show was
rooted in a truth often misrepresented as a logical fallacy that music
critics make when describing Soulive’s electric sound wave: that the
group is “danceable” jazz. In fact, as was especially evident in the
intimate but wall-to-wall packed setting of the Westcott, it’s not
quite that Soulive’s music causes people to dance that makes the group
so jaw-droppingly good. Rather, it’s the rhythmic throb of a tuned-in
crowd’s attention that provides the key ingredient in which Soulive
lustfully cooks up and serves as unadulterated fan-to-band
communication.

After Ithaca-based jammers Thousands of One warmed up the crowd, a representative of NextAid
took the stage in front of a restless audience at around 11 p.m. The
Los Angeles-based organization produces benefit concerts on a national
scale to help African orphans who have lost their families to the AIDS
epidemic; it’s a worthy cause that Soulive and other groups have
trumpeted since the organization’s founding in 2002. Unfortunately,
some hecklers hungry for Soulive’s ensuing jam session ignored the
NextAid rep’s rap about the tragic scope of the AIDS situation, and
they hooted with Apollo Theater-like dissatisfaction. (This shameful
response wouldn’t have happened 30 years ago. Regarding these goons,
where’s the Westcott Nation’s righteous indignation when you need it?)
Giving the struggling advocate a hand with crowd control, however,
Soulive took the stage dressed in NextAid T-shirts, ensuring that the
evening’s public relations message wouldn’t be lost in the rock-solid
party to follow.

Lively up yourself: Soulive drummer Alan Evans led the trio through an unstoppable concert at the Westcott Theater on Dec. 4. MATT MUMAU PHOTO

Having squeezed up tight to the front of
the stage, fans bounced into an immediate wave of trance-like motion
after the trio splashed into the set’s opener, “Dig It.” A rhythmically
spasmodic groove was driven largely by Hammond B-3 organist Neal Evans’ locked-in connection with his brother and bandmate, drummer Alan Evans, who came on strong during the piece’s performance. Although the tune was released on the group’s 2005 CD sampler Steady Groovin’,
the last disc the group recorded with Blue Note, Soulive has an uncanny
ability to take such tuneful staples and make them fresh in a live
setting, as if the band is creating it from scratch on the spot.

With the addition of the cerebral, traditional jazz notions of Caucasian guitarist Eric Krasno,
the group’s black soul sound truly shows the full force of its rich,
cavernous value. During the Westcott appearance Krasno tended to stand
toward the darker parts of the back of the stage, hence coming across
deeply drawn in to his interior space. Yet his solos served as
progressively brighter fireworks that popped in later numbers like
“Steppin’,” the opening track on one of the band’s earliest and most
popular studio albums, Turn It Out (Orchard).

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After the hook played out in the downright bad
(in the Michael Jackson sense, that is) tune “El Ron,” the trio
revealed its newest form of experimentation: Guest saxophonists Ryan Zoidis and Sam Kininger
took an outstanding co-solo therein, riffing on the second and fourth
beats in a hip-hop style. Adding killer musicianship that gave the
performance a wow-inducing energy, the horn section’s surprise cameo
followed in a frequent pattern found in Soulive’s recorded catalog:
bring in guest musicians to springboard from the group’s signature
sound. Such invites have previously included jam band icon Dave
Matthews, who provided a rather commercial-sounding cover of Ani
DiFranco’s “Joyful Girl” for the band’s most divergent album, Next (Blue Note), and lead vocalist Toussaint, who shined on their 2007 Stax debut No Place Like Soul.

Judging from the crowd’s cheering
support, however, the night was all about the Evans brothers’ and
Krasno’s bond, which served to blow the roof off the joint toward the
gig’s climax with “One-Seven,” a 7/4-meter groove that plays on
Soulive’s endearing fixation with rhythmic play, and the solid-steel
rocker “Tighten Up.” 

Barely pretending that they were
finished, Neal Evans returned to the stage and baited the audience to
scream at full volume for an encore. The keyboardist employed an
anonymous synthesizer, which pulled from the funky wah tones heard in
the recordings of Parliament Funkadelic, and a vintage Hohner Clavinet
to run through a psychedelic solo improv, as he effectively brought the
group into the cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Jesus Children.” By the time
the tune was finished Soulive had taken complete ownership of the
venue’s stage, and had left scores of dazed admirers lapping for more.

If you still don’t believe that Soulive
blew people away at the Westcott, just ask hard-to-impress, longtime
fans Christopher Lawrence, 24, and Michael Russo, 23. The Eastwood
residents have witnessed nearly 40 Soulive concerts in the past, and
both exclaimed that the Westcott show was the best performance ever.
Laughing in exasperation after being grilled about the gig, Lawrence
made no attempt to mask his unabated adoration: “This band’s concert
here was just epic!”

The Westcott Theater continues its musical march this week with electronica groovers The New Deal taking the stage on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 9 p.m. (tickets are $18); the Ryan Montbleau Band on Thursday, Dec. 11, 9 p.m. ($14); and SubCat Studios hosts a benefit for the Make-A-Wish Foundation with local bands The Action!, Rocko Dorsey and Matt Burke, on Friday, Dec. 12, 7 p.m. ($7). For more information, call 299-8886, or check the Syracuse New Times’ concert listings. 

—Matt Mumau