Have you folks been keeping up with the whole Jellowstone thing? You should be–after all, this new record label is the brainchild of Reggie Pace (No BS! Brass Band, Glows In The Dark, Bon Iver, etc.) and Devonne Harris, aka DJ Harrison.
Have you folks been keeping up with the whole Jellowstone thing? You should be–after all, this new record label is the brainchild of Reggie Pace (No BS! Brass Band, Glows In The Dark, Bon Iver, etc.) and Devonne Harris, aka DJ Harrison. With these two coordinating things, you can be sure this label will be on top of everything happening around RVA where jazz, R&B, hip hop, and all sorts of other funky subgenres are concerned. That’s information you can use.
Butcher Brown are Harris’s main project at the moment, a groovy instrumental quartet driven by Harris’s organ and featuring some prime funk grooves that may remind you of 70s masters like Herbie Hancock (pre-“Rockit”) or Grover Washington Jr. The group is about to drop their second full-length album and Jellowstone debut, All Purpose Music, on Tuesday, October 21. And to celebrate this release, they’ll be taking the stage at Balliceaux to give their new tunes a live airing.
You’ve got a few days to wait until you can hear the whole thing, but we’ve got a preview for you now in the form of “Forest Green,” a nearly 7-minute jam fueled by some outstanding wah-wah guitar work from Keith Askey, as well as an incredible performance from the band’s rhythm section, bassist Andrew Randazzo and drummer Corey Fonville. Maybe this sounds like sacrilege, but listening to their funky, syncopated rhythms makes me nostalgic for the first couple of Squarepusher albums–though of course, this is much more impressive, since these gents are really playing these instruments rather than just programming drum machines.
Kings will also be on the bill Tuesday night at Balliceaux, and this project from Big Payback leader Kelli Strawbridge pairs his drumming talents and incredible singing voice with multi-instrumental prowess from Devonne Harris to bring us R&B in the vein of classic Prince and other funky greats from the late 70s and early 80s. Like Butcher Brown, Kings has a bit of a throwback sensibility, but only in that they’re trying to revive a warmer sound from a more creative era. Check out a demo track called “Perfect,” which features No BS! trumpeter Marcus Tenney on sax and sounds like a long-lost outtake from Ice Cream Castle or Cold Blooded:
The festivities begin at 9:30 PM over at Balliceaux, located at 203 N. Lombardy St. Kings will start things off, followed by Butcher Brown. And with the Jellowstone crew in the house, you can expect plenty of special guests to appear over the course of the evening. Admission is $5. For more info, click here. And you can preorder your copy of All Purpose Music now from Jellowstone’s Bandcamp page–or just bring some cash to the show Tuesday night, and grab a copy for yourself then.
