On the verge of some members' graduation from college, hometown boys Addison Groove Project celebrated the release of their most poignant album to date, Allophone, with a sold out crowd at the Paradise on Friday, April 5. A hometown show marking a very serious stepping stone up into the forefront of the live music scene in the Northeast. I felt that the AGP Paradise gig carried significant weight with it. But the project, being one grand experiment in butt-shaking funk revelry, can not be stopped for mere trifles such as publicity and press. To those inside, AGP ensured that the groove was offered up in generous amounts all night.

Using a fairly standard band infrastructure of drums, bass, keys, guitar, and horns, AGP achieves sounds ranging from soul to neo-hippie jazz. Their bread-and-butter is of course, funk, but even that contains elements of other influences. For instance, the project usually has a direction to their playing; their notes are purposeful and point to a destination. They can build up and break down. They can capture many moods as well, and are adept at the many new derivations of the funk that seem to be floating around these days: ambient space funk, horn-driven big band funk, disco funk, funks too strange and unique to categorize. This is, after all, a project.

On April 5, the AGP funk laboratory was preceded by DJ Mister Rourke**, spinning Maceo Parker and A Tribe Called Quest (aptly, the Low End Theory, being the art of moving butts). Rourke would stay on as AGP took the stage to open with a blistering version of "Carpal Tunnel," the first cut off Allophone. "Carpal Tunnel" is a case example of the AGP funk formula: tight composition (in this case a collaboration between guitarist/trumpeter/vocalist Brendan McGinn and keyboardist Rob Marscher) with deft horn charts and catchy bass lines, interspersed with sections of raucous improvisation led by sax players Dave Adams and Ben Groppe.

"Carpal Tunnel" also showcases the much improved playing of drummer Andrew Keith. While he has always provided a solid backbone to AGP's sound, Keith's hi-hat and cymbal work on "Carpal Tunnel" as well as some of the other cuts off Allophone indicate that he is now taking more musical chances. Observe Keith and Marscher leading the band bravely into the land of reggae with "Just So You Know." Keith's newfound daring on the kit also allows him to relegate the keeping of the beat to other members of the band, most often John Hall on bass. Hall is a rock. He drops bombs on the low register that are at once simple and elegant, and is most often responsible for bringing the band back to Square One after an exploratory jam.

Jamming with AGP can take many forms in their versatile setup. The most obvious mixture in the project involves the bass, drums, keys, and guitar laying foundations for a sax solo. Both McGinn and Marscher are also capable of leading jams, although McGinn, I have noticed, shyed away from guitar heroics for the better part of the night at the Paradise in favor of some wah pedal and strummed jazz chords. Marscher too, who is quite capable of pushing a jam stratospherically, decided in favor of texture work and rhythm on keyboards. The mix did not favor Marscher's keys for some reason that night, and whether this was by design or by fault of the room in which AGP was playing is unclear. Marscher is a compositional force in the band, penning or co-authoring all but three tunes on Allophone, and it leaves me to wonder why he seems to take a backseat on stage. He too is a talented improvisationalist, frequently sitting in with other ensembles in the Boston area and collaborating with the likes of Miracle Orchestra and Club D'Elf. I, for one, would not complain if in the future the keyboards not only took a leadership role in the improvisation of the music, but also were turned up in the mix.

McGinn and Marscher's decisions to take a backseat may have been just as well, because AGP invited many friends on stage to contribute to the project including DJ Mister Rourke**, McGinn's trumpet teacher and mentor, a conga player, a tenor sax player and flutist, and to open the second set, MC Shuman, who was playing the Paradise's front room with the Joint Chiefs. Of all the special guests, Rourke** seemed most integrated into the project, especially in the second set when he traded fours with Marscher in a turntable-synthesizer duel reminiscent of DJ Logic or Kid Koala's Bullfrog.

AGP kept the hometown crowd comprised heavily of long-time devotees and personal friends moving all night. The band seemed to be having as good a time as anyone else. AGP put out wares both new and old, as well as some beautifully executed covers including a smoking version of Herbie Hancock's "Hang Up Your Hang Ups" to close the first set. By the time the groove ended at 1:30, concertgoers were exhausted from dancing, exhilarated at AGP's new material and energy, and ecstatic from being funked into a frenzy for the past 2 1/2 hours.

It seems, then, that the project has paid off. Allophone is released, in all its glorious groove, to the public. The live show remains solid, a keystone to the AGP experience. AGP has distilled and formed a proper mixture of ingredients to groove, funk, and jam. With several core members graduating from college this May and June, AGP enters a period of growth in their careers that will most likely take them out of the northeast on a regualar basis, and make gigs such as the one at the Paradise the stuff of legends for devotees to the project. I only hope that they continue to spread liberal doses of their unique brand of music wherever they can, and above all, continue to experiment with the tools they use to reach new levels of funk.

AGP's grand experiment continues, and right now the project seems to be right in the groove.

-David Taus

**Mistake! The DJ at the show was not Mister Rourke. Rourke played on the CD Allophone but could not make the Paradise gig. The DJ at the show was solid nevertheless. Thanks to Aaron for the heads-up on this.