Kneebody

Reach

 GroundUP Music

The exploratory Kneebody returns with Reach, their first studio album in six years, with a reinvented lineup.  In the band’s first release since 2019 the band remains true to its genre-blurring mantra that has evolved over the past 24 years. When the band first started it was not that common to blend the electric with the acoustic, but today that pairing is probably more common than the polarity of each. At the recent Big Ears festival, for example, almost every jazz ensemble had both.

“We’re not the young kids on the block anymore,” says saxophonist Ben Wendel. “I’ve been looking back and appreciating the sound that we made, and realizing that it really had an effect on our scene. It’s a legacy moment, if you will.”  Reach, which was produced by the band, is also the first Kneebody studio release to feature solely the lineup of Wendel on saxophone, Shane Endsley on trumpet, Adam Benjamin on keyboards, and Nate Wood playing simultaneously drums and electric bass. The format follows the departure of bassist Kaveh Rastegar, who left to pursue other projects. Wood’s doubling is not unlike Jano Rix of the Wood Brothers or bluesman Nick Moss but it is rarely seen in jazz, at least to my cursory knowledge. Yet the other members add elements to their main instrument as well, with Wendel and Endsley using pedals, and the latter also delivering bass synth.

So the reformed, more limber group took their time recording through a five-day period in the studio in Brooklyn. As they hadn’t played together since 2020, part of this time was necessary for reacquaintance and to allow for closer collaboration as many pieces were written on the spot in the studio. They had to prove to themselves they could operate just as well as a quartet as they did as a quintet.  The members are all progressively minded and kept pushing the boundaries, using space perhaps as the missing fifth member to keenly hone their improvisations. Whether this is jazz or not may be debatable to the purists. Surely there are strains of jazz, but just as many or more elements of prog-rock, electronica and 21st-century R&B, with contemporary classical concepts, roots, world music and more in this infectious stew. Call it a special kind of fusion that has an increasing number of reference points from Donny McCaslin to Mark Guiliana to Wayne Krantz yet Kneebody irrevocably has its own signature sound.

As you listen, it would appear that the band doesn’t have one leader. Wendel’s and Endsley’s  use of electronics has their instruments blending in seamlessly with Benjamin’s keyboards. Wendel takes credit for four tracks, Endsley for three, and Benjamin for two of the nine. The digital version contains an additional track, “For DF.”Wendel’s opener “Repeat After Me” begins with a thick groove from Wood, (sample worthy indeed) and explained by Wendel as an attempt to channel a Morse-code-type melody through groove and shifting harmony. In more common language, it’s easy to envision a surfer navigating the waves as one listens. The title track, on the other hand, is more dreamy and ethereal. Wendel’s “Another One” has a joyous, uplifting melody sitting atop Wood’s grooves, while his album closer, “Say So,” is a steady stomper, more in the context of jazz, as individual solos ring out to Wood’s insistent beats.

Endsley’s “Natural Bridge” is a lively piece inspired by the trumpeter’s interest in old timey fiddle music, as heard mostly in Benjamin’s riffing and his own majestic trumpet lines. The syncopated “Top Hat” is another that remains close to jazz structures.

The spacey, willowy “Lo Hi” emerged from a planned, but later abandoned, collaboration with Tune-Yards’ Merrill Garbus. This piece evolves into vibrant turns and interplay from the three melody instruments. Here, as on some others, the robust, oft filthy bassline is remarkable, considering that Wood is playing the drums at the same time.

Benjamin’s “Glimmer” is memorable and light, mostly free of the effects that color the other pieces, with a gorgeously wistful melody stemming mostly from the one-string-per-note Una Corda piano while the the two horns alternate repetitive riffs with sustained notes. Benjamin’s“Long Walk,” began its life as a solo-piano piece and was expanded in the studio,taking the form of a power ballad as the the other Kneebody members contributed. There’s a triumphant, cinematic ‘cowboy western’ feel to it.

Each of these players is committed to numerous projects so it is difficult to guess how long the next hiatus will be between albums. Just the same, nearly twenty-five years on, they remain committed to the group and to each other. Besides the other projects, geography is a challenge. While Wendel and Wood live in Brooklyn, Endsley is based in Denver and Benjamin works as an educator in Reno.  In the meantime let this one swirl around your head, preferably via headphones.

– Jim Hynes

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