Tuesday's Earful: Toubab Krewe @ Santos Party House

By: David Schultz

By steeping their music with a knowledgeable and learned infusion of traditional African rhythms and instrumentation, North Carolina’s Toubab Krewe has always possessed a distinctly singular look and sound. No other band playing in the clubs features someone sitting front and center playing the majestic harp like kora or its smaller counterpart the kamel ngoni. Serious in mien, Justin Perkins joyously sprinkles the unmistakable tone of the foreign instruments through many of the Krewe’s songs like West African rain. When the wide ranging percussion offered up by Luke Quaranta and drummer Teal Brown enter the mix, the Krewe’s lengthy instrumentals possess an authenticity rare for any American band, much less one from the Tarheel state. The flip side to delving that deeply into a form of music that rarely finds its way onto turntables (sorry, old school reference) is the unavoidable comparisons to be made to other efforts bearing a pronounced African influence like Paul Simon’s Graceland, Peter Gabriel’s “Shaking The Tree” or Vampire Weekend’s entire catalog.

Just prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, Toubab Krewe returned to New York City for a midweek set at Santos Party House. With Dave Pransky working variations of the strident bass line of “Who Knows,” one of the many gems from Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys period, and guitarist Drew Heller moving through his array of Link Wray surf rock riffs and classic rock inflected blues lines, Krewe worked through their instrumental catalog, hitting the high points captured on their Live At The Orange Peel. It’s truly something to watch Toubab Krewe play together, if only to watch Perkins incorporate a completely anachronistic instrument as if it were done by every band. If Robert Randolph can lay claim to the title of “Hendrix of the pedal steel guitar,” there’s no reason for Perkins to shy away from being known as the “Hendrix of the kamel ngoni.”

At Santos, the Krewe previewed some of songs earmarked for a 2010 studio release, offering a glimpse into what may be their evolution beyond being defined by the music that brought them together. The African influence, so intrinsically intertwined with the Krewe’s DNA, becomes subsumed into a larger, multi-layered mixture. Much less pronounced, the Krewe’s identifiable sound comes in subtle reveals and hints; sort of like the Band of Gypsys via the Mali townships. With Perkins setting his African strings aside in favor of added percussion or electric guitar, the shift is a gradual departure from the neo-Afropop jams that vaulted them onto festival stages. It bodes well for the longevity of a band that could easily be pigeonholed as a one trick pony.

Any band whose live set features lengthy instrumentals will unavoidably fall within the wide shadow cast by the jamband umbrella. Despite the genre’s abiding mantra of experimentation, something for which Animal Collective, MGMT and Radiohead receive innumerable plaudits, the jamband name can still be uttered with pejorative derision. Oddly, even those who cast aspersions on the jamband scene tend to take great joy in the parts of any show where the music builds and coalesces into cohesive peaks before ending in a fulfilling denouement. The facility with which the Krewe built the melodies and percussion of long time live staples like “51 Ft Ladder” and “Buncombe To Badala” served only to raise the energy level of an already frenetic crowd and the band’s traditional encore of “Petit Amadies,” a free form extended drum circle, potentially prompted the night’s most spontaneous moment, with three ladies springing onto the stage to offer an interpretative dance. Anyone dismissing these moments as typical of any “jamband” may be missing the forest out a desire to label the trees.

Toubab Krewe will tour the south through most of December before making their way to Harrisburg, PA on December 17 and the North Star Bar in Philadelphia, PA on December 18. They will celebrate the New Year with a special two night run at the Orange Peel in Asheville, NC.