Fred's In Da House

Best known for his 1980 funk hit, House Party, trombonist Fred Wesley has one of the most impressive CVs any sideman could boast: cutting his soul teeth working with Ike Turner in the late '50s and early '60s; moving on in '68 to work with James Brown, and with trumpeter Matt Johnson and saxophonist Maceo Parker in Brown's backing band The JBs, creating that trademark James Brown sound; and then on to Parliament/Funkadelic, the Count Basie Orchestra and sessions with everyone from Ray Charles to Cameo to Van Morrison. Along the way he's fronted his own bands and got into some surprising collaborations, and we'll get a taste for a good slice of that history when Fred Wesley & The New JBs make it here for their second visit to Australia.

“We do some James Brown tunes,” a chipper-sounding Wesley explains, on the line from his home in Manning, South Carolina, “some JBs tunes, some of my original tunes… We cover a couple of tunes too – Herbie Hancock's Chameleon, and Earl King's Trick Bag. The show is a variety show – we close the show with the James Brown JBs stuff, 'cause that seems to be the most recognisable by the people, and we also do my own tune, House Party, which is very popular around the world. So it'll be a good show.”

Joining Wesley in The New JBs are guitarist Reggie Ward, saxophonist Ernie Fields Jr, trumpeter Gary Winters, bass player Dwayne Dolphin and drummer Bruce Cox, as well as keyboards player Peter Madsen, whose place is filled when Madsen can't make it by expat Australian player and Sia sideman Barney McAll, though he won't be on board this visit. As for the James Brown legacy, it just keeps on keeping on for Wesley, most recently in the 2010 release of The Lost Album Featuring Watermelon Man.

“That was an album that James Brown did for me back in 1974 and featured some of the finest musicians in the world [Michael and Terry Brecker, Eddie Daniels, Steve Gadd, Hugh McCracken] and it was on the shelf, just sittin' on the shelf in the James Brown archives and they just decided to put it out. I hadn't forgotten about it but I just thought maybe the material might be dated, you know, but it's still relevant today – the music on it is real good.”

That same year saw Wesley release a new album that ran true to its title. “We did that in Germany with my band, and my son, Victor, played on it – he plays trombone also. I had a lot of material I had collected from other people, so I named it With A Little Help From My Friends. I had a guest appearance from Nils Landgren, who's a fine saxophonist from Sweden, and we did a tune by Peter Madsen, Obamaloo, and we had a tune, Beautiful, by a rapper and producer that I play with sometimes in a band called Abraham Inc… All the tunes were from somebody else, you know? All my friends contributed to this album.” Now Abraham Inc is a whole other story, Wesley collaborating with klezmer artist David Krakauer and klezmer/hip hop artist Socalled.

“I was just sitting at home one day and David Krakauer called me and asked me if I would meet with him to discuss a new band,” says Wesley. “So I met him and we discussed this band that would be klezmer and hip hop and funk mixed, I didn't know how it would sound, but we did an album [Tweet Tweet] and it came out real good.”

Fred Wesley – 69 years young and still cutting edge.

Fred Wesley will be playing the following dates:

Saturday 23 March - West Coast Blues'n'Roots, Fremantle Park WA
Sunday 24 March - Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Wednesday 27 March - Upstairs Beresford, Sydney NSW
Thursday 28 and Friday 29 - Bluesfest, Byron Bay NSW