Snarky Puppy - Immigrance

by Malcolm Carter

published: 13 / 6 / 2019

Label: Groundup Music
Format: CD

Instrumental and genre-defying thirteenth thirteenth album from American group Snarky Puppy

Review

Are we really qualified to analyse the latest album by Brooklyn-based collective Snarky Puppy? I’m certainly not. This changing bunch of musicians has won three Grammy awards and were, initially at least, hailed as a jazz band. But look at those Grammy awards; in 2014 they won Best R&B Performance and in 2016 and 2017 the award was for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album. I can’t see the word jazz mentioned there (and I’ve checked, it seems there is a Grammy for Best Instrumental Jazz Album). So, I’ve been avoiding Snarky Puppy because my knowledge and interest in jazz has waned a little over the years. There was a time, as the years rolled by, when I felt that I should pay more attention to the genre and for a while the music of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and a host of others ate up most of my spare income. But instead of life slowing down and having the time to really appreciate the genre I found I had less time to fully appreciate jazz. And that meant bands like Snarky Puppy all but passed me by simply because of the jazz label. Now I’m annoyed. ‘Immigrance’ is the collective’s thirteenth album and, although leader Michael League attended the University Of North Texas Jazz Studies program for four years, this latest collection of eight pieces isn’t what many would label jazz. So it’s one of the other labels that are been used to describe their music then? Fusion? A jam band? Okay, call it what you will. All I know is that if their other albums sound similar to ‘Immigrance’ then I, and many others put off by the above labels, have been missing out on some of the best instrumental music being made today. I guess we all see and hear things differently but now I’m hearing that Snarky Puppy is, in fact, a funk band. I wouldn’t like to hang any label on the music they create. But I will say, for what it’s worth, this album of eight instrumental cuts blew me away. While ‘Immigrance’ is made up of eight different pieces of music, and while elements of all the above genres (and a lot more) can be found in their music, Snarky Puppy really are like no other band. The album is really one long groove. The paying is, as expected given each contributors background in music, exceptional. They seem to feed off each other, like a jam band maybe but this is no pointless meandering going on for aeons. You don’t find your mind wandering off as you listen to the tracks. You will sit mesmerised as each cut unfolds. There is little to compare this album to, it’s impossible to slot it into any neat little genre as we all love to do. It stands alone as an original piece of music which works on so many levels. For once words are meaningless when describing the music Snarky Puppy create on ‘Immigrance’. It’s an album to listen to and experience, one to fall into and just enjoy. The only downside is that with such a huge back catalogue it’s going to take a while to track all their work down.