Musicians are a waning lot. Not entertainers, mind you, but musicians. And yes, there's a difference. Entertainers perform for the on-stage action. The entertainer's power comes from the knowledge that he is in front of a crowd, and everyone's attention is focused precisely on him. A great deal of entertainers unfortunately are able pass themselves off as musicians these days, when in truth they are no more than charismatic ringleaders, masters of ceremony. To take away the crowd is to take away the power and talent of the entertainer.
But does a painting exist before it is put in a gallery for people to see? Is a book written even though you might not have read it? If a guitar wails in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Of course. The aesthetic palette of the masses luckily finds musicians to be entertaining, so in a wonderful paradox, some lucky musicians are put on stage in front of large crowds, and perhaps unluckily, become entertainers.
Musicians, actual musicians, are artists. Musicians often have a very unassuming and almost uncomfortable stage presence, as they are aware that they need no crowd or audience in order to produce their art. What a musician does ultimately stems from an egopathic source. To take away the crowd does not diminish the musician's potency in the least.
The members of Uncle Sammy are musicians.
Let me explain: I say this mostly because Uncle Sammy took the stage on Wednesday evening, June 5 to a sparse crowd and it did not diminish their potency in the least. As is consistent with musicians, Uncle Sammy was at their best that evening when they abandoned the conditioned duty to play to a crowd and played for the sake of making music. The thinned crowd lucky enough to be privy to this process of turning inwards paradoxically responded with an incredible extraverted energy, which in turn pushed the band further when they realized that their interplay was validated. This is how musicians thrive; this is how the Art is able to exist so successfully in the community. In biology, it's known as a positive feedback loop. In live music, it's known as a successful show.
I suppose the science and philosophy of it is unimportant. I suppose what matters is that when you are there, in the thick of things, actually living it and not picking it apart, you are having a good time. On this level as well, Uncle Sammy comes through. It's just good to know that the reasons are firmly grounded in musicianship, and not cheap entertainment.
From the first note at the Middle East, Uncle Sammy was laser precise. With minimal visual communication, they pulled off some acrobatics in syncopation and accents of which only the most seasoned musicians are capable. Their songs generally consist of a tightly woven composed segment, with room allowed for improvisation and open beginnings and endings in which the band blends songs together, creating a long chain of music indistinguishable to all but those in the know as separate songs. The music often took on a spacey, trancelike narrative, complete with builds and appropriate climaxes and released. This being my first Uncle Sammy show, I had a hard time telling where songs ended and new songs began. But song recognition really didn't matter, because what was presented was a clearly stated musical arc, with improvisation so tuned it might as well have been composed. And while some ensembles tend to allow their extended jams become a long run-on sentence, Uncle Sammy was able to draft thoughts on the fly that showed proper use of musical grammar and organized, finely tuned group thinking.
And for the most part, Uncle Sammy played fast. These guys assuredly have had their daily doses of Grant Green, Weather Report, and Jimmy Smith. Yet, it wasn't a wash of fingerings and rolls. There was always a melody to be heard in the mix from some party, and everyone in the band took a turn at some point in the night. One of the most unique features about the band in my mind was that bassist Brian O'Connell would take time off from his thumb elasticity exercises down low and move up the neck to play melody on his bass. O'Connell is quite the skilled finger man, as is displayed by his prowess on the Chapman Stick, a 12-stringed, wide-necked behemoth played exclusively by hammering one's fingers onto the strings (if you haven't seen the Chapman stick in action, you'll do a double-take when you do. It's quite astounding to see one being played well, and O'Connell will show you just that).
O'Connell seemed to me to be the focus of the band, given most of the song-selection responsibility, and being the subject of the other three's eyes for a good chunk of Uncle Sammy's time on stage. O'Connell could rarely be caught looking at his bandmates or anything at all to be sure, as he relied on his ears for most of the communication being done between individuals on stage. At times, O'Connell looked so comfortable on stage playing music that it might as well have been his living room on a Sunday morning. His whole appearance would exude 'the groove,' he being so deeply involved in the music that he would forget to look cool on stage. Like a true musician.
The band passed around musical leadership like it were a game of tag, as responsibilities of leading jams were thrown back and forth liberally for the entirety of the set. Each member of the band, drums included, is capable of leading an improvisation. Guitarist Max Delaney seemed to me particularly adept at composing melody on the fly. Delaney added a nice rock and roll twist to Uncle Sammy's general demeanor of post-fusion high speed improvisational funk. Think David Gilmour played at double speed with a little more swing sensibility. Delaney's strat was often run through a distortion effect, primed for guitar heroics when necessary and appropriate. His guitar also tinged Uncle Sammy's overall groove with a certain dirtiness, power, and grit absent in other acts of the genre.
Uncle Sammy gravitate towards the more massive low register all evening. With O'Connell popping up on the bass to take lead, keyboardist Beau Sasser dabbling with the keys off to the left, and drummer Tom Arey enjoying his floor tom, Uncle Sammy built from the foundations of a low, almost droning rumble, with accents of cymbal crashes and guitar picks to bring forth and compliment the most hearty of tones. With the scaffolding of the low end under control, the band takes off and furiously erects sound structures that are at the same time delicate and sturdy. As much as it was a lesson in sonic construction, Uncle Sammy was a journey into the depths of sound, an exploration of what makes things vibrate at frequencies pleasing and intriguing to the human ear. Pleasing in that builds in tension were resolved, intriguing in that tonal resolution was scarce. A strange combination, to be sure. Uncle Sammy, after all, is four former Berklee students, no doubt educated in a wide range of unconventional jazz chords and scales. Even for the set-ending two chord classic rocker "Feelin' Alright," the major triad was a rarity. As much as Uncle Sammy likes to weave rhythm, they also like to pair notes against one another to see what sort of mood might be created. A large sonic experiment. True musicianship.
As Uncle Sammy's set forged onward, the room began to fill and the music began to find homes in the heads of those standing around. By the end, a considerable amount of floor space down front was filled, and bodies were moving. Dancing, at points, is a tricky business to some of Uncle Sammy's music. How to funk in 7/4 time? It is a dilemma that the noodle dancers have not quite solved, and the band unfortunately did not have the time to explain further.
Yet, nobody was telling them how to dance. There was no master of ceremony. No entertainer telling you how to enjoy the music. The members of Uncle Sammy are musicians, and they leave the matter of what to do with their art up to you. So fear not in this world where musicians are trading in content for the flashy salesmanship of entertainment; Uncle Sammy is sticking with the ancient musician's formula of quality music. The show isn't flashy, there are few bells and whistles, but what is there is four solid musicians so comfortable doing what they do that you can't help but be entertained.
-David Taus