The Groove Seeker goes in search of killer grooves across rock, funk, hip hop, soul, electronic music, jazz, fusion, and more.
The Dead Kenny Gs: Operation Long Leash (The Royal Potato Family, 3/15/11)
The Dead Kenny Gs: “Black Truman (Harry the Hottentot)”
[audio:https://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/02-Black-Truman-Harry-the-Hottentot.mp3|titles=The Dead Kenny G’s: Black Truman (Harry the Hottentot)]Smooth-jazz lovers beware. As an antidote to the polished alto saxophones and rarely improvised easy-listening jams of adult contemporary music, eccentric jazz trio The Dead Kenny Gs has released its second album, Operation Long Leash. Given its play-on-words moniker that simultaneously drives a sock down the mouth of smooth-jazz king Kenny G and recalls the early ’80s hardcore-punk band The Dead Kennedys, the powerhouse trio taps into a sound that fuses jazz and punk. It’s a crazy mix that works surprisingly well, played intensely by a group that has the skill and knowledge to pull it off.
Composed of three of the members of legendary Seattle-based Critters Buggin — bassist Brad Houser, drummer and vibraphonist Mike Dillon, and saxophonist Skerik — the band uses its genre-mashing experience to anchor it all down. The trio has played in countless projects together, including all three in The Black Frames, and Dillon and Skerik comprise half of Garage a Trois. Needless to say, the three have run in the same circles for more than two decades, playing hybrid styles that are everything but conservative.