|
Granfather Ridiculous | February 13th 2003 | The 13th Floor
| Baltimore, MD
It is a wonderful thing to be able to get the opportunity to
experience new and unfamiliar music, especially if it can cut deep to the bone
and heal your funky ills. That is really important to me. For, to be able to
stand up and testify about the healing power of music is a blessing and there
are a lot of people out there who need some good healin’ through music. Those
folks need to meet their Grandfather Ridiculous.
I had never even heard of them until a few days before I saw ‘em, and I purposely
avoided listening to them in any capacity up until the show. I recommend that
practice if any of y’all want to feel the purity of livin’ music in its finest
state of being while charting the unfamiliar soundscapes of the mind.
As the first notes struck during their sound check I was genuinely
impressed. They are musically mature well beyond their years. In fact, such
was their power that I was immediately caught up in their austere sonic collage
in a most dynamic and deranged way that I was blissfully lost in their playful
sound. These cats are beyond temporality in some ineffably cool way and they
can take you places, even if they are just foolin’ around, getting their sound
right.
When they first started to play, they played under the original
lineup of the band, the Joe Rybczyk, Jr. Trio, a traditional jazz trio. Apparently
they started out playing under that moniker on a cruise ship that gave them
quite a bit of freedom to explore their gift, as opposed to what such live circumstances
normally conjure up to the uninitiated listener as far as a nightmarish swanky
lounge sound is concerned. They used that rare opportunity for musical freedom
and experimentation very well.
Photo by Britt Nemeth |
Joe Rybczyk Jr. is the founder and leader of the band and he is a whirlwind
of sonic weirdlitude on the keys. Everything he plays fits perfectly and is effortlessly
assuaged with a master’s touch. His telekinetic vibrancy reminds me of Jesse Gibbon
and Dr. Dan. Perhaps they are all from the same far-flung plane of existence.
However, the muse that is flowin’ through him speaks a distinct language. I have
never had the divine experience of bein’ caught up in a tornado, but my guess
is that is sounds like what plays Joe.
Photo by Britt Nemeth |
Jason Fraticelli plays the upright bass and is perhaps the most animated
and energetic bassist I have ever seen. If he had bigger stage I am certain he
would have been flingin’ his bass around so as to rend asunder more outrageous
sounds from his big-ass sonic coffin. He is jazz incarnate. Chris Wood comes to
mind when I listen to what is peakin’ through his groove, but Jason’s sense of
the natural is wonderous.
Photo by Joe Rybczyk, Sr. |
Nigel Sifantus accentuates the playability of time on the drums and is
a percussive genius. He mixes and mingles the electronic drums pads and acoustic
funk with panache and grace. He is one of the most accurate and tasteful drummers
out there makin’ it all happen and that is a frightening prospect when one considers
how young he is. When he locks with his beat-boxing brother their tango becomes
unfathomably glorious.
Photo by Britt Nemeth |
Together they are making something wonderful happen and the landscape
through which they freely roam is dominated by a serious study of jazz and freestyle
improvisation to which a label like Blue Note should really pay close attention.
And to think that all of this took place before Taylor McFerrin returned
to the stage after scarin’ the lordly shit outta me during their sound check.
He hopped aboard for a brief stint towards the end of their first set, I suppose
to ease us into his apocryphal realm of inhuman beatboxability.
When they returned I think my brain slithered out to mock my
body. They play so damn well you cannot think about it, you just have to go
with it and feel. Whereas the Liqourice tastes overwhelmingly good, like the
real Swedish deal, not the crap that gets peddled and pawned off on poor folks
in the States, Grampa Riddy is beyond the stars. They easily transmute hip-hop
to a funktastic overload while keepin’ a back end of spoken-word admixed with
a jazzy flair to keep you on your proverbial toes. What I am tryin’ to say is
perhaps beyond the logic of wordsmithing as their music is. These youngsters
are the most gifted master-crafters of sound I have heard lately. It is as if
they all took a collective swig from the musical prodigy cup.
 Taylor
McFerrin can do anything with his insatiable sense of rhythm. Temporality is
a plaything to him, and his gift will catch you off-guard. He can create things
with his natural vocal gift which lab technicians the world over have been tryin’
to sell for decades. Imagine someone using cyclical breathing like Dr. Didg
to scratch and scribble like a master in the dojo of funk, breakin’ off beats,
clicks, snares and hi-hats like Dennis Chambers with his throat, and
you get the idea. Upon that texture he then freestyles good vibes that ooze
with a healing power this world needs. To see the student outshine the master
in his lifetime is a rare and good thing, and he is just beginning.
However, every member of this living thing works together to bring life to all of us. Often when you get great musicians together, they try to blow each other off the stage, or one becomes the center of the sound, but with these young musicians that is definitely not the case. They gel and hit the knowte. At times they reminded me of Lake Trout, then suddenly twisting a new appendage out of sheer nothingness to reflect the passion of Schleigho as The Slip pranced in for a smile and a jovial auditory jostling. However, it is their effortless ability to meld and fuse jazz and hip-hoppin’ good funk with a dizzying array of electronicalicious overtures that makes them stand way out in the great beyonder, far away from everything else that is going on around them. They make this planet so much more digable.
Students now are they, masters of tomorrow they shall become.
Welcome to the future.
Laurin Wollan
JamBase | Baltimore
Music Monthly Magazine
Go See Live Music!
|
