Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

We went to see Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and The Budos Band play Prospect Park on Saturday, hoping for an intimate neighborhood gathering. Not so much. More than 20,000 people came to the Celebrate Brooklyn show, and the crowd spilled onto the lawns and hills around the bandshell. Maybe it was the $3 (optional) cover charge. Maybe it was the valet velocipede parking near our favorite bike lane. Or maybe it was SJ and the DKs, who released their fourth record, I Learned the Hard Way, this spring, and perform live with enough soul to reach the outdoor equivalent of the nose-bleeder seats.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings,Better Things

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, I Learned the Hard Way

Opening act The Budos Band added their instrumental soul to the evening.  Their new record, The Budos Band III, drops tomorrow (Aug. 10), with music that fuses Afro-beat with the sounds of instrumental-rock godfathers The Ventures and The Meters, and Enrico Morricone’s Spaghetti Western scores.  The 10-member band resembles the Dap-Kings in size and instrumentation, but sound harder, louder, and darker than their Daptone label mates, per the album cover’s hissing cobra.

The Budos Band III

The Budos Band,Raja Haje

The heart of Budos III is the collective groove, driven by the rhythmic and harmonic interplay of horns, guitars, and percussion. Many songs begin with a guitar and bass vamp, often a repeated phrase played in parallel octaves; their trebly timbre and minor key riffs establish an air of menace. Then the horns add festiveness as they enter in homophony, all playing with the same rhythm, but in different pitches. Brief trumpet, saxophone, organ, and flute solos highlight individual players throughout the record, but mostly Budos plays as a band, with instrumentation and complimentary rhythms that pay homage to the Afro-beat tradition. Unlike Fela Kuti’s marathon jams, however, Budos songs last between three and four minutes, a more pop-friendly length.

The Budos Band, Budos Dirge

The Budos Band hails from Staten Island and records at the Daptone studios in Bushwick, but there’s nothing particularly New York or outerborough about their song titles, which celebrate the natural world’s beauty ( “Golden Dunes” and “Crimson Skies”) and its destructive power  (“Black Venom” and “Nature’s Wrath.)” Take that, Fresh Kills.

The Budos Band, Black Venom

Neither The Dap Kings nor The Budos Band are innovators. As revivalists, they wear their ’60 and ’70s influences on their funky sleeves. But they know hard work and patience: Sharon Jones once worked as a prison guard at Rikers Island and members of the Budos Band are schoolteachers. And if Saturday’s crowd was any sign, their take on old sounds still commands attention.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and The Budos Band are on tour this summer and fall.

The Budos Band