Much more than a funk band, Detroit’s Will Sessions took a stab at paying homage to the innovators of jazz with their six-song project Kindred: A Tribute to the Pioneers of Jazz Fuzion. The project was mostly recorded in a church in Detroit’s Eastern Market and pays tribute to the likes of Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane, and Jaco Pastorius. Recently, The Loop sat down with bandleader Sam Beaubien and he broke down the story behind each of the tracks from Kindred.

Kindred (featuring Wendel Harrison):
Sam Beaubien: That song to me if the epitome of the Bitches Brew sound. Its got a darker sound. It builds, its based of a simple groove that kind of builds up. When Wendel comes in, its way out. He plays like wacky stuff on that. Its not like he’s sitting there playing beautiful melodies. There’s energy, really playing outside of the box. That’s how I wanted that song to sound. That song actually was only recorded as a trio – drums, bass, and keys. I was playing keys myself. I overdubbed the trumpet. I overdubbed the bass clarinet myself. Sounds like a guitar but its a trumpet. That’s my trumpet going through a guitar wah pedal going through the amp. Miles did that. He was one of the first guys to do that. I wanted to have that sound with my trumpet. I made it an electric sound. With Wendel, we were into that Tribe Records stuff at the time. It had a similar type of sound as Bitches Brew and stuff from that era. We thought it was cool. It was Detroit. It was local stuff. It was rare music. We liked Tribe Records. I can’t remember how the exact idea came about to hire him but we found his contact information somewhere online. He came in and that was one take. First of all, he’s a legend. At that time, I wasn’t working with a lot of people back then so I wasn’t use to being in the studio with professional people. I was kind of nervous. When played something, especially music that is powerful like that, what are you going to say ‘Ohhh, I want it to be a little different’. He played something. I really respected him. I took what he played. Thats the way that music is. Its really on-the-spot.

7 Miles:
SB: The reason why is was called “7″ is because the meter isn’t in 4/4. For people that make music, that most music has 4 beats to it. I do three groups of four, then the last group is a group of three. The reason I called it “Miles”, the idea I had was a song called “Rated X” that Miles did on an album called Get Up With It. It’s got that dark organ over the top of it. Sounds kind of scary. Then there is a drum break over it. The drummer is just playing a phat drum break over the top of a bunch of spooky sounds and dark colors.

Polyester People (featuring Jeremy Ellis):
SB: Polyester People is the one that has Jeremy Ellis on it. It was a tribute to Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters. Miles incorporated jazz, rock, and avant garde music to make Bitches Brew. Herbie Hancock infused jazz and funk, so he’s able to play funk music but he kind of pushed it. It wasn’t like James Brown. He was playing some different cords. We wanted to get that sound. We wanted a funky song. If you are doing a tribute to Herbie, I’m not going to play keys myself. I need to have someone that is really good. I’m an okay keyboard player but I’m a trumpet player. I’ll play keys on simple stuff, but if I’m going to do a Herbie Hancock tribute, I want someone that can really play. Jeremy is that man. He’s got that sound. He was in town from California. This was the last song we did for the album. I layered the wah trumpet for it to give it that Miles sound.

Omniverse:
SB: We wanted to give Tim, our bass player, a feature. He’s a great bass player. He can make his bass sound almost like a guitar or a keyboard. He can play melodies. He’s really aggressive with his bass. It was kinda a Jaco Pastorius tribute. Jaco was a great bass player. It was kinda a tribute to him even though we don’t do exactly the Jaco style. The way he’s playing his bass, he playing all his cords on his bass. He’s playing all that rhythmic stuff on his bass. The drums and keys are just playing really simple and he’s keeping the song going himself. That’s kinda what Jaco did. He had a lot of songs that were solo pieces, songs where he used the bass as the lead which usually doesn’t happen much in music. Usually the bass is a foundation to keeping the groove going.

Redirections:
SB: Redirections was our John Coltrane-type tribute. It sounds similar to something you might hear during the A Love Supreme era where they were taking jazz and fusing it with spiritual music. They kind of opened a door for a whole new style of jazz. When you have someone as big as John Coltrane do it, it makes it okay for other people to follow him. They really pushed the limits. He was really pushing the envelope fusing different things with jazz. Even though his stuff was a little before Bitches Brew, it help push jazz into the future.

Phre:
SB: One, it’s free. Its freedom. Its free music. Everyone is free to play whatever they want. That was a song that wasn’t composed. It was on-the-spot. That was the first thing we played when we got into the church. It was kind of like our warm up. Usually, whenever we get together for rehearsal, the drummer will just start playing. We are just talking. It just happens. Everyone is setting up and someone starts playing. Just to warm up and get your fingers going. That song, we liked it. What we were doing musically is not technically correct. He is playing in a different key than I am. It gives it that kind of tension. Its really free.

Kindred: A Tribute to the Pioneers of Jazz Fuzion is due out September 14th on The Few Records along with a vinyl release via Carl Craig’s Community Projects imprint. The Few recently posted “Polyester People” for a free download here

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