Grammy performer to play annual jazz show at Dewick tonight

As anyone who saw this year's Grammy Awards can attest, funk, or at least some mutant variation of it, is back in a big way. The Grammy's "funk medley," which featured Earth, Wind, & Fire, a performance of Outkast's "The Way You Move," and the incomparable George Clinton and Parliament, was one of the longest and most elaborate musical segments ever to appear on the awards show.

Yet, as recognizable as most of these artists are, it was the relatively unknown pedal-steel guitarist, Robert Randolph, who stole the show from his fellow medley performers. Stuck innocuously between Outkast and Parliament, Randolph showed up both acts with a tight, funky rendition of his latest single "I Need More Love," which managed to be infinitely more entertaining than the ostentation of Outkast or the shambling, overcooked Clinton.

Tonight, Tufts students will get a chance to experience what the Grammy audience saw firsthand when Robert Randolph and the Family Band headline the Concert Board's annual jazz show at Dewick Dining Hall.

Concert Board invited Randolph as a way of bringing something new to Tufts. "[Randolph] has a nice, eclectic mix of blues and funk that will appeal to everyone," Concert Board co-chair Adam Drobnis said. "One that reaches to a more diverse audience."

Randolph's diverse sound might have something to do with his equally diverse background. The singer and guitarist learned his trade in a New Jersey church, where it was not uncommon to put on a rock concert while praying. He was discovered playing at the Sacred Steel Convention in Florida -- sort of a trade fair for church-employed pedal-steel guitarist -- and Randolph suddenly found himself signed to a record label and playing with jam scene favorites Medeski, Martin, and Wood.

From there, Randolph became a favored opening act for various jam-affiliated acts; everyone from the North Mississippi Allstars to Tufts jazz show alums, Soulive. He released an instrumental gospel/blues album, The Word, with keyboardist John Medesky in 2001, and a live album in 2002. It wasn't until this year, with the release of his first studio album and a spot opening for Eric Clapton on the guitarist's European tour, that Randolph began to make waves of his own.

Randolph's secret weapon is the pedal-steel guitar, an instrument that defines his sound just as the electric guitar defined Hendrix's and the trumpet Miles Davis.' The pedal-steel looks like an ordinary electric guitar, albeit one with extra strings, laid flat on a table underlaid with pedals that allow the player to change the instrument's tuning on a whim. Because of this last detail, the pedal steel can jump from the deepest, chugging riff to a high-strung falsetto in the time it takes to pick a single string.

Randolph puts the instrument's versatility to good use on his first studio album, the appropriately titled Unclassified. A wild mix of funk, soul, jam, and gospel, Unclassified features Randolph tearing through each genre with pedal-steel, simultaneously forging a distinctive style of his own.

While his musical influences may be far-reaching, Randolph is at his best when playing funk. As a funk artist, Randolph falls somewhere between a wilder Stevie Wonder and a more restrained (i.e., less stoned) George Clinton. One of Randolph's greatest talents is turning an otherwise dull jam song into a fiery funk workout akin to P-Funk at their over-the-top prime. Randolph is certainly eclectic but it is funk that lies at the bedrock of his sound.

If Randolph's Grammy performance tells us anything it's that this year's jazz show will give students a rare opportunity to see an artist on the cusp of a career breakthrough.