Music

If the cats with lasers for eyes on the cover and throughout the liner notes of Helms Alee's new record, Weatherhead, aren't enough for you, then perhaps the gravelly riffs within are. The Tacoma band's follow-up to their excellent debut, Night Terror, shows how unboxable this Tacoma trio is.

It was a seemingly drab weeknight in March when Bend got a long awaited taste of New Orleans funk. The show was an appearance by Galactic, who were joined by a pair of fire-breathing horn players, and the Domino Room was packed with wall-to-wall with revelers going b-a-n-a-n-a-s for the all-instrumental band from the Crescent City.
That March show wasn't an isolated incident. Remember the massive crowd that got down to the Dirty Dozen Brass Band on a cold February night at the 2009 Winterfest? There was also a spirited Trombone Shorty show out in Sisters as part of the Sisters Folk Festival's winter concert series. Now, there's even an all-funk festival coming to Bend this summer at the Century Center, The Volcanic Funk Fest (July 30 and 31), headlined by yet another New Orleans act, Big Sam's Funky Nation, including several other Southern-inspired acts.

The mysterious storyline that emerged from Bon Iver's (Justin Vernon) For Emma, Forever Ago wouldn't have mattered had the album been a bust. On that album, Vernon's experimental falsetto was instantly haunting and yet strangely uplifting in most accounts. For Emma wrestled with failing friendships and the need to move away. The record felt less like someone trying to win over new fans and more like an artist conveying personal convictions. It did, however, drive a large flock of listeners into the now mythical cabin where these sounds materialized.
Bon Iver (the second from Vernon under the Bon Iver moniker) sounds exactly like his fans might expect or hope for. There's enough familiarity to keep wandering ears interested and Vernon's voice is still something of a brilliant head scratcher. He drives many songs with his dangerously high falsetto, but Vernon's focus on instrumentation really stretches this album into something grand. Bon Iver employs some saxophone, impeccable drum arrangements, slide guitar/strings and echoes that provide much-needed texture to all songs.

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In 1977, then-Portland-based jazz keyboardist Jeff Lorber and his Jeff Lorber Band recorded and released an album called Fusion. Working from musical foundations laid down by Weather Report, The Crusaders and Miles Davis, Lorber melded straight-ahead jazz with elements of rock, funk and R & B into an amalgamation known thereafter as “fusion.”
“When I was at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, I played a lot with guitarist John Scofield who was a fellow student and saw a lot of jazz greats play in and around the Boston area. Slowly, I went from being a jazz purist to being heavily influenced by what The Crusaders, in particular, were doing with melodic funk and R & B,” said Lorber.
Fusion, the album, caused more than a bit of controversy upon its release. “Confusion is a better name for that music,” groused more than one noted traditional jazz musician.