A FILLMORE FRIDAY THE 13TH

Jambase/ California
Posted on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2004
By Dennis Cook

For as much as I know about music, especially the ripe harvest of the San Francisco region, there are still yawning gaps in my knowledge. The Sons are such a chasm. Having heard their name for literally decades I had heard only a handful of songs, including the cult darling "Get High," which had made an appearance on more than one mix tape from hophead pals. And one recurring aspect of the Sons legend has been a wide-eyed glee people have when talking about this band's live performances, and not just the bygone, back-in-the-day throwdowns but gigs of recent vintage, too. The band reformed in 1997 after laying dormant for 20 years while leader Bill Champlin plied his trade with FM-radio mainstays Chicago (of which he's still a member). Always ready to be schooled, I stuck around after the Jemimah boys shuffled off to hear if these tales were tall or true.

One of the things that kept me planted was the sight of a vibraphone on stage. There's a big, beautiful tone the vibes make, celestial but made by human hands. My affection for the instrument was cemented after a long intense listen to Andrew Hill's Judgment! with only Owsley's wonderful drug for company. Felt as if Bobby Hutcherson were transmitting divine missives that language was too thin, too clunky to convey. Music at its best, as it would be with the Sons of Champlin, extends past our comfort range and touches upon things we can only hint at with words. The man who would use them this night, Geoff Palmer, hit many of those same high, mighty notes and refreshed my love of these unique tones.

With an invitation to "all feel good together" the Sons roared out, beaming to be back at the same hang they'd frequented often 37 years earlier. The first thing that hits me is how unreasonably tight they are. Instantly so. The horns accented lines with marvelous restraint while the guitars harmonized like schoolboys in a choir. The music swells, dips, and then takes off on a freight train rumba riding on jittery organ rails.

Champlin's voice is a strong, flexible, natural fit for song, one of those pure gifts from God like the Everly Brothers, Graham Nash, and Tower of Power's Lenny Williams. Like their songs, it is the unbridled sunshine of AM-radio hits that should have been, pop that borrows the best bits from blues and soul, making the word "rock" live up to its power to contain whole galaxies in a single syllable. It is the eye of a storm where all the parts come together and lift us like a happy twister from where we stand.

A warning of "Don't anybody drink the apple juice" gets a knowing laugh. Many in this audience probably started traveling in their mind around the same time as the great cerebral astronaut, Captain Al Hubbard. It is a freedom celebrated, both the trips themselves and our luxury to laugh. Even as other parts of the country slide into a starched collar Puritanism there's still oases like San Francisco. When Champlin later describes them as "another band of stoners from Marin" going through "another day, another food stamp" he's greeted by a hoot of recognition. We might not be rich in the things society tells us to pursue but we are blessed in so many other ways, including these survivors from the tail end of the flower power years.

Going back to the Tower of Power, it's pretty clear that the East Bay Grease owe at least a spiritual royalty check to the Sons. Many of their moves in the early days echo the sound Champlin pioneered with guitarist Terry Haggerty (who unlike Bill has gone on to revered cult status amongst the hippie intellegencia... an oversight this piece hopes to rectify if only a little). And one of the current Sons, mighty Mic Gillette (trumpet, trombone, vocals), actually played on one of the great live records of the seventies, ToP's Live and in Living Color. What one hears in Sons' tunes like "Imagination's Sake" are classic slow jams with all the seeds removed. The up-tempo numbers are a command, not a suggestion, to dance and find the ass you shook off later.

Throughout the night I have the image of the horns being a bird that lands on your shoulder or lights on your index finger Snow White fashion. As strong, as solo-licious as both Gillette and his sax partner Marc Russo (former lead tenor for Tower of Power and foundation member of jazz-fusion act the Yellowjackets) are, they have a great skill at being present without being intrusive. That's down to both the arrangements and their stellar playing. During a ballad where Champlin sings, "You are my reason to survive," it is the combination of his falsetto and the sax notes that really sell the line. This is the kind of stuff Shaft puts on as he runs a bubble bath and lights more candles than the Vatican in preparation for his lady's arrival.

The youngest Son, lead guitarist Tal Morris, is clearly tickled to be playing this good time music. High steppin', curtain of hair swinging, a gold chain floppin' around, he's a live wire, a switched on daddy who has clearly put the charge to Bill Champlin. The chemistry between them--down to the teasing banter--is charismatic, something that spans generations because the music surpasses any one time. The impression might be, and I myself held it before coming to this show, that this is an oldies band. Instead, think of them as existing outside of time, carrying these songs around to those that need to hear them. Combining a '60s exploratory bent with intricate arrangements, this is what pop music might have been had it not dissolved into the shock and awe pabulum of today.

Discovering the Sons of Champlin is like finding money in an old coat pocket when you're really broke. Or discovering a new author who makes you cry in only a few paragraphs because your heart has been split open wide. To know this band, to resist cynicism and believe their message that time will bring you love, is to receive a gift, a smile wrangled into notation, the intangible joy of music at its best and brightest.