Breaks: Anthony Joseph and the Spasm Band

Well, this just looks like a Marvin Gaye disc. And of course, that won’t raise any complaints around these parts. But on an album that so clearly attempts to move past generic restrictions, its cover image – all colorful and positive – seems to harken back to a time with more stringent divides not just musically, but socially as well.

The ‘70s, which the album art here so properly evokes, was a continuation of what was supposed to have occurred during the ‘60s revolution. That decade didn’t wind up revealing too much else, but there was a carrying over of touting education and the like. So that’s where Anthony Joseph and the Spasm Band come in.

Distinguishing Anthony Joseph the writer and academic from Anthony Joseph the front man for the Spasm Band is all but impossible. In these seemingly disparate pursuits, Joseph seeks to combine the two. The first release from the Spasm Band was accompanied by writings that Joseph had recently completed. On this second full length – entitled Bird Head Son - the text that comes along with the album comprises poems that make up the disc’s lyrical content.

So while Joseph might be bent over a table, struggling with the blank page and then heading to a classroom for a paycheck or two, it’s in this musical setting that he and his band are able to actually work out an artistic hypothesis.

As Joseph and company combine everything from funk and soul – ala Mr. James Brown or even the aforementioned Marvin Gaye – jazz gets tossed into the stew as well. And in mentioning stews of any variety, it’s worth noting that with the album’s alchemy comes a bit of New Orleans flavor that’s difficult to nail down, but listeners might notice in the drumming on tracks like “Blues for Cousin Alvin.” Alongside that drumming, though, are enough horn skronks and rolling bass lines to entice a wide array of music geeks, nerds and historians.

There are transgressions into the spoken word thing that aren’t shocking to find given Joseph’s proclivity for literature and the like. But that doesn’t mean it always works out well. The title track, though, is nothing but pleasurable even as the front man affects his literate sing/speak. The funky backing doesn’t hurt with bassy sax blasts pronouncing the one, the root, the soul. Waiting around for Joseph to kick in after the lengthy introduction is the most remarkable part of the track might be a let down. But since Joseph is able to take advantage of that groove, his vocal only adds an extra layer to what’s all going on.

“The Bamboo Saxophone” by contrast isn’t as enticing. Joseph jumps in almost immediately as only a guitar and some soul claps accompany his reading/singing/recollecting some words. There’s some haughty language crammed in there as well as a few elevated concepts, but that too should be expected. Of course, the inclusion of all of this doesn’t make for something that simply functions as entertainment. What we have here is another example of edutainment.