The Kids Were Alright

There's some music so powerful that it must be shared with the world. Some music transcends all preconceived notions of what music is and who it should be made by. Some music is just too damn good to be ignored.

Enter Kashmere Stage Band. High school students in Texas came together as a student band with soul under the guidance of their Otis Redding-inspired music teacher, Conrad Johnson. This student band wasn't playing jazz standards, or at least not recognizable standards. From the 1960s to 1978, KSB played great funk instrumentals with a big band sound. Most of their music was original and all of it was deeply influenced by R&B, Funk, and improvisational Jazz. Texas Thunder Soul (1968-1974) is a collection of thirty-two KSB songs that highlight the professional ability and powerful presence of these musicians.

This collections opens with "Boss City", a groovy horn-driven track that follows a melodic guitar and whams through your headphones, and ends with an alternate take of "Getting It Out of My System" that jangles and syncopates like the best New Orleans funk. In the middle, cementing these two tracks together, is the glue of KSB. There's the inspired "Take Five" cover that rearranges chords, but still comes out on top. There's "Scorpio", a song fit for any Quentin Tarrantino gore-fest with a groovy soul. There's a live version of "Ain't No Sunshine" that just floats mournfully through your speakers. Then there's "Super Bad", where the beat is all-important and any improvisational melody-work is tightly connected to the heartbeat of the piece. As I listened to "Super Bad", I started wondering about the recent film of the same title. The music on the Superbad movie soundtrack owes an awful lot to the Kashmere Stage Band and other denizens of funk. After all, there are only so many times you can use the "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" cliche on a high school movie soundtrack before the listener starts to feel a little cheated.

Listening to a hidden treasure like Texas Thunder Soul (1968-1974) makes you wonder what kids are hiding up their musically gifted sleeves these days, and how many groovy music teachers it'll take to inspire another Kashmere Stage Band. For now, it's good to know that those kids were alright.