Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
LowDown
March 2, 2024
Thirty years ago, a group of local high school and college musicians got together to share their collective love of jazz, funk, and running loud improvisational experiments in public spaces. They gave themselves a goofy name (partly inspired by Spinal Tap) and a tagline that was more like a manifestation mantra: “Jazz Millions.” Their first album, Live at the Lincoln Continental (1995), featured 12 tracks with killer hooks, including an iconic tribute (rapped, Beastie Boys-style) to the all-you-can-eat buffet at India Palace. Countless lineup changes, world tours, original songs, and boundary-busting jazz covers later, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey’s actual success turns out to be unquantifiable—way wilder than any human math could compute.
It didn’t hurt that pianist Brian Haas and his friends were all prodigy-level talents. But JFJO was as much about the mission as the music: the mission of reinvention. During two sold-out shows last weekend at LowDown, original JFJO members Haas (whose presence in the group has been its one unchanging element) and Reed Mathis (guitar/bass) reunited, joined by percussionist Jason Smart, who played with the band from 2001 to 2007. Some of Tulsa’s greatest musicians have been part of the JFJO situation through the years, from Peter Tomshany and the late Sean Layton to Chris Combs and Josh Raymer. The crowd at Saturday night’s show was studded with many more.
JFJO has operated as a trio several times, and this iteration brought a special blend of history and ultra-fresh brilliance to the anniversary moment. This two-hour set featured 10 new songs, versions of classics by Louis Armstrong (“Song of the Vipers” as a clackety rumba/island/New Orleans stomp) and John Coltrane (“Naima” as a transcendent, shimmering wash), and the same ecstatic, 1000%-in-the-moment playing and performing they’ve delivered since the beginning.
It only looks relaxed—note Haas strolling into the venue at five ‘til eight with a tiny dog in one hand and a green smoothie in the other, or the beatific smile on Mathis’s face throughout the night, or Smart’s casual posture at the drum kit as he lethally rearranged my sense of what rhythm even is. But it’s the kind of relaxed you get when you’ve been training in something you love for your whole life.