Born as a studio spinoff of the sprawling, Funk-filled world of Snarky PuppyGhost-Note has develop into the band with nine lives.
While still built on the supernatural rhythm section tandem of Drummer Robert “Sput” Searight and drummer Nate WerthThe group involves Oakland for 2 shows at Yoshi's November 25-26 with a revamped eight-piece lineup.
With the glowing soul pipes of Mackenzie Green, Ghost-Note brings a brand new vocal sound and a current album. “Mustard and Onions” This isn’t any less heavily groovy than the project's previous two releases. But when you hearken to each of the three records, you could possibly easily think that there are several bands named Ghost-Note on the concert stage.
“The simplest explanation is that the development was shocking in some respects,” Werth said. “If you listen to the albums, they are all very different. You have to remember that this started as a drum and percussion concept album to capture the unique brotherhood between Sput and myself.”
When Searight joined Snarky Puppy in 2006, he was something of a studio legend. He won a Grammy for the 1997 album “God's Property,” securing the award within the “Best Gospel Choir or Best Choral Album” category with a Dallas ensemble founded by his mother, Linda Ray Hall-Searight. Although the album was co-produced by urban gospel great Kirk Franklin, “I never thought about what I should do in gospel,” Searight said.
“Our music was not accepted in the black church. The pastors and elders didn't like it, but the youth organizations loved us and welcomed us. There was no way they could see us unless they came to secular venues.”
After touring with God's Property for several years, Searight decided to try his luck in Los Angeles, where “Terrace Martin was my liaison,” he said, referring to the multi-instrumentalist and producer who toured with God's Property , before working closely with rap superstar Kendrick Lamar and saxophonist Kamasi Washington.
“I was his mentor and in return Terrace looked after me when I moved to LA. My first job was with Snoop Dogg,” said Searight, who later worked as a drummer and producer with Justin Timberlake and Kendrick Lamar and Timbaland.
He joined Snarky Puppy as a keyboardist, but his trap set skills soon made it clear that Searight belonged behind a drum kit. He and Werth spent greater than a decade touring and recording with the collective because it won Grammys and have become a musical institution with its own label, GroundUP Music, and the GroundUP Music Festival in Miami.
By 2014, Searight and Werth's rhythm section had taken on a lifetime of its own as their extraordinary Bandstand connection — “like fraternal twins,” Searight said — took root. “Instead of me playing drum solos by myself, they became percussion duos,” Searight said. “We played the same cadences and did the same things. The fans would go crazy over that.”
They spent weeks within the studio developing percussion tracks to create 2015's “Fortified,” a sprawling jazz-meets-hip-hop soundscape with a handful of snarky guests. The success of the album prompted them to take the music on the road, but as an alternative of going bankrupt and transporting tons of percussion gear, they teamed up with Werth's older brother, drummer Nick Werth, who brought his midi-mallet Percussion rig transformed right into a brass section, string quartet, etc. percussionist battery via sampling.
With studio time booked for a second album, Ghost-Note had to desert the workbook and develop an entire latest batch of fabric inside two weeks when Nick Werth left to pursue his own project. The result was 2018's “Swagism,” which, like “Fortified,” topped the iTunes jazz charts.
With friends like guitarist Raja Kassis, saxophonist Kamasi Washington and guitarist Brandon “Taz” Niederauer within the studio, Ghost-Note turned the sessions right into a loud party. The material they developed provided a rubric for a brand new sound.
They toured until the pandemic shut down the music scene, and after they put a band back together to hit the road again within the spring of 2021, “we sounded like our own cover band,” Searight said. Looking for a way back to their roots, Werth and Searight unleashed their bandmates' vocal abilities in a program of covers, “or as we call them, 'covers,'” Searight said.
Songs like “Hair” by Graham Central Station, “Take Me to the River” by Al Green, “I'm the One” by Average White Band, “Steppin' (Out)” by the Gap Band, “The Payback” by James Brown and a few Prince Sometimes instrumentals still play a job, but on Mustard n'Onions Ghost-Note focuses on mixing the funky old ingredients into delicious latest dishes.
GHOST NOTE
When: 8 p.m. Nov. 25-26
Where: Yoshi's, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland
Tickets: $36-$69; yoshis.com
Originally published:
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