Brian Slattery Photos
The Roots.
A packed College Street Music Hall on Thursday night was treated to a three-act evening of deeply soulful music that encompassed New Haven music heroes Phat Astronaut and culminated in the now-seminal Philadephia hip hop act the Roots.
The night started with a set from DJ Buck of Hartford’s own Hot 93.7 FM, who spun favorite after favorite and was clearly thrilled to have the evening’s opening slot.
“Welcome to the show!” he announced amiably to the gathering audience. “We have a big show here tonight — the legendary Roots in the house!” With other audiences, he might have had to egg people on to give applause (“put your hands together and make some noise!”). But the people at College Street didn’t need those kinds of instructions; they filled the place with a huge cheer.
DJ Buck’s obvious excitement was mirrored by experimental soul group Phat Astronaut — Ym on lead and harmony vocals, Mark Lyon on guitar, Stephen Gritz King on keys, Dylan McDonnell on flute and sax, Brendan Wolfe on bass, Travis Hall on drums, Michael Knobloch on percussion, and Keenan Asbridge on trumpet — who took their positions as Ym performed a quick solo piece of looped voices that felt like a benediction. The band then performed a set of originals that steadily, irresistibly gathered energy from song to song, as tempos got faster, dynamics got louder, and the general vibe shifted from contemplative to celebratory. The musicians smiled at each other and the audience almost constantly throughout the set, with an energy that proved infectious, as the crowd’s cheering got louder and louder with each song.
Ym also took the chance, at the very end of the set, to talk about change, both personal and social. “I’ve been changing a lot, and embracing myself,” they said, to raucous applause. “Sometimes change can be scary,” they continued, “and mixed into that, it can be beautiful, meaningful. You can start to build a life, a world, that you want to live in, for you, with you, in you. And in a world that seeks to not care about this, when you leave here — I hope you enjoy this concert — but when you leave here, give yourself some grace. Give each other a little bit of kindness. I’m not telling you how to fix the world. I’m just saying how nice it would be if we were nicer to each other.”
The Roots — as a touring unit, a nine-piece band helmed by Tariq Luqmaan Trotter, a.k.a. Black Thought, on the microphone, and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson — smoked through a nonstop hour and a half of music that began with heavy funk, proceeded to hip hop, dipped into New Orleans-style brass band jazz, and then, dizzyingly combined all of them and more. In some moments, band members took turns with scorching solos. In another, bass, sousaphone, and drums combined to form a dark, lurching sound quite unlike anything this reporter had heard. And in other moments, the band locked in to perform the revolutionary hip hop on which the group made its name, as musicians who could capture the hip hop aesthetic on live instruments and both pull it into the future and connect it with the past
The Roots’ set was part history lesson in the way it made the case that jazz, funk, and hip hop are intimately connected — even more deeply than the chronological record that shows one genre as a natural progression of the genre before it. The music made the case for a common source, pulled out of time, that made jazz new and fresh, and made hip hop the oldest form of storytelling. These connections made the music that much more thrilling. It helped that the group lived up to its reputation as one of the best live bands out there. Each player was in full command of his instrument. Thompson laid down grooves and switched up rhythms with mesmerizing precision while also serving as flawless bandleader. Trotter’s rapping was as vital as ever, and when not dropping bars full of heat, he was an enthusiastic hype man for the band’s musical excursions.
The Roots literally did not stop, not once, between songs. The only clue that the band had reached the end of its set was a sharp “thank you!” from Trotter, who then introduced the band, just before launching into what felt like an encore — which the thoroughly engrossed audience would surely have demanded had they been given the opportunity. The last number ended with a flourish from Thompson, the house lights came on, and the audience stumbled out of the theater, dazed and pleased, the rhythms and changes still ringing in their ears.
