The Tempest

Issue date: 5/14/08 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: Courtesy of Pearl Jazz Recording Label Gemini Soul's latest, a tribute to Egyptian mysticism and jazz-funk of the 1970s.

Media Credit: Courtesy of Pearl Jazz Recording Label San Francisco's Gemini Soul plays a jazz-funk fusion with an electronic element known as "cyber jazz."

Some time ago, before most of us had crossed the prenatal astral plane, the planets aligned in just the right way so that from the primordial ooze arose Herbie Hancock and other jazz-funk pioneers who served to transition America's music from a smattering of R&B, soul, and blues.

This was jazz for the groove-grinding masses, bolstered less by the bourgeois leanings of the high-minded elite than by merging a common ground between them and the evangelists of all things funky, the latter which came to characterize the overarching mood of the 70's.

Fast forward several decades after the flirtation between jazz and funk began, and San Francisco's own Gemini Soul have dropped their latest innovation this year, "The Nefertiti Xperience," to etch their own name upon the same canon. Led by bassist André Marcel Ajamu Akinyele, the group enthusiastically endorses their brand as "cyber jazz," which reveals their intentions to groove their way into the future, not to be confused with a novel throwback act to the progenitors of the 70's.

Gemini Soul acknowledges the debt they owe to Herbie Hancock's landmark "Head-hunters" in press releases, which remains a staple to jazz-funk fusioners everywhere. It's a prominent influence which lends Gemini Soul the groundwork, if not the direction of the sonic rhythms of "Nefertiti." That's not to say that the album won't take you to places you've never been, as the disc will hook you from the opener of "Sun Goddess" and will certainly cause you all sorts of mystical lunar revelations. While they are not quite Hancock and they are not quite Coltrane, Akinyele's group can certainly hold their own.

It's hard not to think that "The Nefertiti Xperience" isn't also some sort of homage to the eccentric avant-garde composer Sun Ra, whose "Ark-estra" blazed the way for exploration of solar and Egyptian themes as far back as the 50's. But that Gemini Soul is operating on a whole different level is evident, and the easily transcendent "cyber jazz" they champion is thread worthy of mental departure, for the listener as well as the explorers of the genre.

The locality of Gemini Soul is fortunate for us bystanders, and to hear them in action, one only has to go to Vallejo at the Townhouse Cocktail Lounge later this month, on May 24th. The flyer that I'm holding assures me of a $5 cover charge, which, for the awesome depths of Gem-Soul's music, is none too shabby a deal.

To find more information about upcoming shows, go to www.Gemini-Soul.net.

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