Kool & the Gang entertain with past hits

Kool & the Gang entertain with past hits

By Paul W. Blair

JAKARTA (JP): The stage at the Blue Note Jakarta is fairly
spilling over with musicians this week -- eleven of them, all
told. They're members of Kool & the Gang, in town until tomorrow
evening to please local fans who well remember their many past
hits.

Their opening night show, for instance, included Cherish, Get
Down On It, Joanna, Victory, Too Hot and Jungle Boogie (the last
featured on the soundtrack of the current smash film Pulp
Fiction).

Four of the current group have been part of Kool & the Gang
since 1969: lead guitarist Charles Smith, alto saxophonist Dennis
Thomas, drummer George Brown and bassist/leader Robert "Kool"
Bell. Members with somewhat less seniority include Clifford Adams
on trombone (himself a fifteen-year veteran), Odeen Mays Jr. on
keyboards, Skip Martin on trumpet, Shawn McQuillar on guitar,
Pete Rudd on drums, Gerard Harris on guitar and Mary Elaine
Verrett doing back-up vocals. It's pretty much the same ensemble
heard on Unite, the band's most recent compact disc.

Almost everyone either sings lead from time to time or else
lends a hand on catchy group vocal chants. In fact, part of the
fun during any Kool & the Gang show is watching various band
members hustle from one part of the stage in mid-song to another
to assume some new vocal or instrumental role. This definitely
isn't a group that just stands there. There's actual choreography
to go with each song, too, though the dimensions of the Blue Note
Jakarta stage pretty much limits it to some eye-catching arm and
hand movements by Smith and Adams up front.

"Yeah, some of that stuff was originally worked out for us
years ago by a choreographer," says Bell, "but we've added our
own little touches over the years."

In 1964, when Robert Bell and his brother Khalis were still
high-schoolers, they co-founded their first group -- The Jazziacs
-- back home in Jersey City, New Jersey. Over the next several
years, they became in turn The New Dimension Band, The Soultown
Band and, in 1969, Kool & the Gang.

"At the time we were coming up in Jersey City, we got to know
some of the more influential jazz musicians of that period,
people like Pharoah Sanders, Leon Thomas and John Coltrane. They
tended to intellectualize their music and seemed very committed
to what they were doing. I suppose much of their positive
approach rubbed off on us."

"Then when we were the Soultown Band, we worked as a back-up
group for some of the local singers who were doing Motown
material. After they'd leave the stage we'd do instrumental
versions of those songs, with our horns in place of their
voices."

"That's really how we started combining jazz and R & B. Around
1968, we all started listening hard to James Brown and the Famous
Flames, along with Sly and the Family Stone. Their approach
definitely influenced us when we became Kool & the Gang."

Robert Bell and company have traveled lots of miles together
in the past quarter-century and sold something like 40 million
records along the way. They worked a lot across Europe during
1994, mostly doing concerts and music festivals; played at the
Blue Notes in Japan as well as dates in Taiwan and Thailand; then
ended the year with twelve nights of shows at the Sahara in Las
Vegas.

"Sometimes," says Bell, "we perform at corporate parties
sponsored by major firms like IBM, Digital and General Motors in
conjunction with their annual conventions. At those kinds of
things, we're playing to bunches of baby-boomers who know all of
our past hits. To tell you the truth, we haven't worked all that
much in the United States over the last seven years or so. We've
been really active overseas. But now we're putting together a
reunion tour along with J.T. Taylor, the singer who used to be
with us before he went out on his own. That should keep us busy
in the U.S. for awhile."

Bell, a Muslim, says that Wednesday morning marked the first
time he's ever begun the fasting month in a predominantly Muslim
country. Yet it's certainly not his first visit to Jakarta. "We
first appeared here in 1982. I only remember that it was a pretty
small theater and we did just a single night in the course of an
East Asian swing. Then we were back here in 1990 at the Sahid
Jaya as part of an entourage that also included Mohammad Ali.
Audiences are always great here, very warm and very responsive."

After Indonesia, the next stop for Kool & the Gang is Germany.
First, though, they'll play concerts in Bandung, at Bale Pakuan,
on Feb.5; in Semarang, at Plaza Simpang 5, on Feb. 7; in Solo, at
Graha Wisata Niaga, on Feb. 8; in Yogyakarta, in Natour Garden,
on Feb. 9; in Malang, at the Prince Hotel, on Feb. 11; in
Surabaya, at the Hyatt, on Feb. 12; and in Bali, at the Nusa Dua
Amphitheater, on Feb. 14.