Connecticut quintet Kung Fu is a band you want to hear play cascades of notes, all night long. You want them to kick the crap out of their instruments. You also expect to dance.
On Friday, as part of its two-night Holiday Spectacular at Toad’s Place in New Haven, Kung Fu performs Steely Dan’s 1976 album “The Royal Scam,” with Steely Dan guitarist/music director Jon Herington and drummer Bernard Purdie, who played on the original recording, sitting in. They’ve hired a full horn section and backup singers. NYC-based trio Consider the Source and Gubbulidis, featuring members of Vermont’s Twiddle, will play opening sets.
Saturday night is pure Kung Fu, with Cosmic Dust Bunnies and Twiddle opening. $20 ($25 at the door) gets you into each show; admission is half-price if you bring an unwrapped toy, which ends up at Yale Children’s Hospital or with the Marines’ Toys for Tots charity.
“We had the idea [for the Holiday Spectacular] a few years back, and it’s been so successful that we just kept doing it,” keyboardist Todd Stoops said. “Our fans were super-receptive and it’s a great way to help out the community.”
Band members read stories about local kids who didn’t get holiday gifts. They learned that Yale Children’s Hospital gave out toys year-round to kids who were admitted for treatment. They decided to help. Now, Stoops said, at Yale, “they all get toys. It doesn’t matter if it’s in January, February, March… The toys that Kung Fu brought in over the last three years: they last all year.”
“Tsar Bomba,” Kung Fu’s second full-length album, was released in March. Like a lot of jamband rock, some of the 11 (mostly) instrumental pieces adopt the form of small-band jazz, with head melodies that spin out into peaking improvisations, over looping chord structures and charged grooves, until someone signals the way out. Other songs have multi-part structures, not unlike mid-’70s jazz-fusion and progressive rock, with tempo shifts, riffs played in octaves, and new keys and modes introduced with little warning. Kung Fu has a bona fide guitar wizard in Tim Palmieri (who also plays in the Breakfast and the Z3); Stoops and saxophonist Robert Somerville can stretch out as well as anyone on the jamband circuit, and bassist Chris DeAngelis and drummer Adrian Tramontano can be funky, nimble or driving: whatever’s needed. (Often, it’s all needed.)
In years past, Kung Fu tried to present a diverse holiday show, pairing themselves with Break Science, the Stepkids and other bands they don’t usually get to share sets with. Two years ago, the show took place only six days after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown; saxophonist Jimmy Greene, a friend of the band, lost his daughter Ana Grace. “That was very tough,” Stoops said. “My bassist and saxophonist both knew Jimmy really well and attended the services on the day of our show. Being able to give back to kids at that show in particular was pretty heavy.”
“The Royal Scam,” a dark and funky record, is an album Kung Fu has wanted to cover since last summer. (They’ve performed “Green Earrings” in the past.) “We all just love that album, the vibe from start to finish,” Stoops said. “When it became a reality that we could get Bernard [Purdie], everyone just started losing their minds.”
This year, Kung Fu hopes to fill an entire truck with toys.
“I think there are 10 children between everyone in this band,” Stoops said. “This seems like a pretty natural thing to do.”
KUNG FU HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR with Jon Herington, Bernard Purdie, Gubbulidis, Consider the Source, Cosmic Dust Bunnies and Twiddle, takes place on Friday, Dec. 19 and Saturday, Dec. 20 at Toad’s Place in New Haven. Showtime is 10 p.m. Tickets are $8-$10. Information: iheg.com.
