Since I’m in the United States, I decided to make the most of the unique opportunities the place provides. Ann Arbor, in particular, is a hub for great music and the University Musical Society (UMS) organises many music, dance and theatre events. I wouldn’t want to be so presumptuous as to call myself a connoisseur, but I do dabble in a little bit of music.
So I kept a keen lookout for upcoming music events nearby and guess who decides to tour in Ann Arbor? Only the most brilliant jazz band/collective/ensemble ever – Snarky Puppy!
For those readers who are unfamiliar with this group that makes the kind of music I want played at my funeral, please check out all the hyperlinks in this blog post. Not only do they create magic, but they’re also extremely WHOLESOME. They support music in every way possible – be it promoting other artists’ music in their own shows, recording live performances at non-profit arts organisations, organising Masterclass workshop-type sessions; you name it and they’re doing it. This, for me, is what sets them apart from other musicians.
They are currently on their Immigrance tour (Immigrance is their 13th album, released this March) and had a show in Ann Arbor on 8th September. Needless to say, I was at the Michigan Theatre box office the day the tickets went on sale, and got myself a 2nd row seat ticket (thank God for student discounts). The show was on the weekend following my birthday so I decided to go for it and treat myself. And boy, was it worth it.
Traditionally, SP performs with a special guest artist, and this show had Alina Engibaryan gracing us with some brilliant performances. My personal favourite was We Are – it has these beautiful chord progressions and really nice, thought-provoking lyrics. The New You was another one I loved – a very nice blend of vocals and instruments, and giving off the right amount of Jazz vibes.
After a few more songs by Alina, Snarky Puppy followed. The band currently has about 25 members, 9 of whom were at the Ann Arbor show – Shaun Martin and Justin Stanton on the keys, Zach Brock on the violin, “JT” and Nate Werth on percussions, Chris McQueen on the guitar, Michael League on the bass and Jay Jennings and Chris Bullock on the trumpet and saxophone respectively.
They opened the show with Even Us. The opening guitar piece is haunting and it reminds me of The Last Of Us sound track. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that I had goosebumps on my arms. All of them were so into the music they were playing, it was quite captivating to watch.
SP does a lot of live audience recordings, so they don’t really have “music videos” per se. But they went experimental with Bad Kids To The Back. Michael League talked about how they were all super excited to come out with the funky video, but when they finally did, people just kept asking about when their next live recording would be. :3
Sitting in my 2nd row seat, I got my own live recording anyway.
The set list included Embossed (composed by Bill Laurance), Bigly Strictness, Tarova, Tio Macaco, Thing of Gold and Lingus (on public demand; I like to think they heard me scream “Linguuuus” and decided to do it). Lingus has the best keys solo I have ever heard in my entire life, so if you’re up for 11 minutes of pure heaven, do give it a listen. Unfortunately, Cory Henry wasn’t there to do his classic solo, but it was amazing nevertheless.
They concluded the show with an interactive performance of Xavi. Now, I’ll try really hard to explain this as best as I can. So there is a concept known as time signature in Western music. It’s basically the number of beats in a bar. The simplest time signature is 4/4 – this means that each bar has 4 beats. A lot of songs have a 4/4 time signature. You definitely know it – you just don’t know that that’s what it’s called. SP plays around with time signatures, they do a lot of complicated stuff (to put it simply). Often, different people are playing on different time signatures. And Xavi is one of those songs. So they split up the audience into two groups and gave us each one time signature to clap to. Trying to keep up with the beats and not get distracted by the solos they were playing was fun. By the end of the song, the guy sitting next to me was super confused and had given up on the whole thing.
All in all, I think it was 3-ish hours of absolute bliss. I don’t think there was even a moment when I zoned out, which is a big thing considering my almost non-existent attention span. What is worth mentioning is that other than the Alina Engibaryan songs, everything was solely instrumental. It’s easy to get distracted when there’s no lyrics to listen to and in spite of that, I was hooked throughout the show.
I have no doubt that I haven’t been able to do justice to the surreal quality of the music I heard, but I sincerely hope that anyone reading this enjoyed the music I have linked. If you’re still reading, thank you and make sure you check out some of their other songs as well.
Karma Speak 