Way of life Music – Type Weekly

Don’t blink, as a result of Corey Fonville and Sam Fribush are making strikes on the velocity of sound — the sound of the Hammond organ, to be actual.

“It’s really exciting,” says Fonville, the Richmond-based drummer identified close to and much as a founding father of the Concord Jazz-signed hip-hop fusion band, Butcher Brown. “I’m like, ‘Man, is this all happening right now?’”

“The minute we start playing, it’s hilariously easy to make music,” says Fribush, the Greensboro, North Carolina-based keyboardist who has vaulted himself to the forefront of a revival of appreciation for the Hammond organ and the distinctive position it could play in numerous jazz combos.

Since linking up in June, the Fonville x Fribush partnership has dropped a digital-only EP that includes guitarist Charlie Hunter (“R&B Organ Trio”), almost bought by means of two vinyl variants of a forthcoming long-player that includes guitarist Alan Good Parker (“What Day Is It”), performed a number of sold-out exhibits in Richmond and earned the highest spot on Tidal’s Best New Jazz playlist, all whereas establishing an uncommonly natural sonic and visible id. Did I point out there’s a clothes partnership? We’ll get there. Quite a bit has occurred these final 9 months.

“It’s just been very cosmic,” Fonville says. “Everything has just made too much sense, almost scary.”

A speedy begin

The duo grew out of a seed planted by a shared mentor: Charlie Hunter, the hybrid bass-guitar virtuoso who’s featured on the “R&B Organ Trio” EP, who contributed to D’Angelo’s “Voodoo” album and who, like Fribush, calls Greensboro residence. Hunter had been spending an increasing number of time in Richmond, then coming again and singing the praises of the artistic group surrounding Butcher Brown. “He kept coming back to Greensboro being like, ‘Man, you got to hang out with these guys. Y’all are speaking the same language,’” Fribush remembers.

Butcher Brown is now 4 full-length albums into its relationship with Concord Jazz. The newest, “Letters from the Atlantic,” arrived lower than a yr in the past, supported by loads of nationwide and worldwide touring. “It’s not easy to want to venture off into a whole other project,” Fonville says. “I have Butcher Brown — I was one of the founding fathers of that. It’s not easy to be like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna start something new.’”

Yet Fonville realized his musical travels had been lacking one thing: a sound he’d appreciated since he was rising up in Virginia Beach with a father who posed for a childhood picture with Jimmy McGriff when the legendary organist carried out in Norfolk within the early Seventies. The youthful Fonville additionally has first-person recollections of attending a mid-Nineties musical pageant on the age of seven and seeing Larry Goldings play the organ. “This is different,” he stated to himself on the time. “I didn’t understand it yet, but I knew this was something special that resonated with me. It was so hip, but it was from yesterday.”

Fonville talked about to Charlie Hunter that he was trying to hyperlink up with an organist. Hunter let Fribush know. Fribush texted Fonville and pitched making an organ trio file collectively. Fonville prompt bringing in Alan Good Parker, the latest Richmond-to-Los Angeles transplant who has proven his appreciable chops each inside and out of doors of the jazz context. Fonville additionally prompt monitoring at Minimum Wage Recording not lengthy earlier than Lance Koehler moved the studio from Richmond to Staunton, Virginia.

Fribush drove up along with his Hammond, and the journey proved productive. “We recorded over 30 tracks in two days,” Fribush studies. The first batch of these recordings will change into accessible on Friday, Feb. 27 with the discharge of “What Day Is It” through Charlottesville-based label ConflictHen Records. The grooves are tight, but the enjoying is refreshingly free. If it appears like music made in a no-hesitation, first-idea-best-idea setting, that’s as a result of it was.

Fribush supplied a cornucopia of instrumental sketches as compositional beginning factors — upwards of 100 concepts. Parker supplied melodic embellishment. Fonville supplied percussion and a brisk tempo for the mission as an entire. “Sam would play a thing,” Parker says, “and I would write some melodies, and we’d kind of sketch out a form, but the improvisation of the writing and recording was very alive.”

Though Parker was nonetheless working by means of his components on the similar time he was laying them down, Fonville stored the session shifting ahead. “I would have probably done a lot more takes, [but] I remember Corey being like, ‘Nah, man, I think that was good.’”

“There’s no reason to stay on something for too long if we don’t have it by take three,” Fonville confirms. “When you have musicians like Sam and Alan, it’s just easy. They’re high-caliber and sharp, so there wasn’t much time wasted.”

According to Fonville, there’s a philosophical connection between that pacing and the organ combo vibe: “I think we’ve gotten too serious at a certain point with improvised music. It’s like, ‘Let’s just have fun. Let’s just relax and go in there and play music…’ This kind of music isn’t supposed to be perfect, because it’s a lifestyle thing.”

 

The sound of dedication

The Hammond organ isn’t simply an instrument. It’s an artwork kind unto itself: a extremely versatile and specialised assemblage of keys, drawbars, pedals and metallic tonewheels amplified by a big speaker cupboard that may be a reside sound engineer’s nightmare, in the event that they’re not acquainted with learn how to mic the horn — a spinning treble speaker that appears extra like an air raid siren than a chunk of musical gear. Lugging one round is a dedication, to place it mildly.

“When we did the record, Lance had to take off the door in order to get the Hammond in the studio,” Fonville remembers. “That’s true dedication, man.”

Bringing one from place to position might not be enjoyable, however nothing brings a celebration just like the Hammond. Originally bought to church buildings as a funds various to pipe organs, the Hammond is pure magic when utilized to jazz. A lot of iconic keyboardists have made the organ their signature instrument, from icons like Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff and Booker T. Jones to newer standard-bearers like John Medeski and Delvon Lamarr. “The organ was the breadwinner for Blue Note Records and most jazz labels in the 50s and 60s,” Fribush notes. “Those were the records that real people, blue-collar people, were buying off the street. Your grandfather, your dad — in his jazz collection, there’s organ records.”

As electrical because the instrument might be within the studio setting, the Hammond actually comes alive when an viewers is there to reflect the instrument’s expressiveness. The crowd tends to get slightly rowdier. Impressive solos earn shouts in return, and staying in your seat is that rather more tough. “It’s got that warmth,” Fribush says. “It’s got that feeling to it that’s automatic. That’s the difference between going to hear a really swinging jazz quartet, versus a swinging organ trio. It’s like, ‘Oh, we’re drinking in here tonight.’”

“Instantly,” Fonville agrees. “Just give me a whiskey.”

Révéler Experiences is the place to go in Richmond to see this impact up shut. The Carytown venue has hosted a number of Fonville x Fribush engagements. Last June, for instance, the duo was joined by a characteristically animated Charlie Hunter, and the group was as responsive as any sit-down viewers you’ll discover. There wasn’t simply applause on the finish of solos: Outbursts of appreciation punctuated instrumental turns of phrase on a near-constant foundation, such that the present felt like a high-energy back-and-forth wherein neither participant may await the opposite to complete earlier than leaping in.

By distinction, their most up-to-date present there, in January, maintained a effervescent simmer. Hunter was within the combine as soon as once more, as was Fonville’s guitar-playing Butcher Brown bandmate Morgan Burrs. After a number of instrumental tunes, the quartet supplied backing for Richmond-based singer Ronnie Luxe, who reprised her efficiency of “Sparks” from the “R&B Organ Trio” EP, and who lent her cool, commanding voice to certainly one of that album’s instrumental singles, a canopy of Sade’s “I Couldn’t Love You More.” “She’s got the golden voice,” Fonville stated that evening between songs. “It’s like a hug.”

While backing up Luxe, Fribush confirmed off the Hammond’s vary — the textural subtlety the organ’s many analog controls can produce. That flexibility is a giant cause he was drawn to the Hammond. “I love the versatility of it,” he says, “the way it was used in gospel music, and being able to dictate the feel of the groove.”

If that sounds to you want one thing a drummer would possibly say, you’re not far off. Fribush describes himself as a drummer at coronary heart. “Really, the organ is just an extension of that,” he says. He grew up in a musical household making an attempt his hand at a wide range of devices, from metal pan to banjo. In 2017, he graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with a level in up to date improvisation then spent a while gigging in New Orleans earlier than shifting again to Greensboro through the pandemic.

Once there, he labored with Charlie Hunter on build up an organ trio repertoire whereas immersing himself in organist canon. “It’s been the last five years that I’ve dug into all the greats like Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Larry Young and some of the more modern guys, like Larry Goldings.” Fribush’s devotion is instantly obvious to those that play with him.

“Sam is one of the few — and may be the one in my age bracket, in my 30s, and millennials — that are pushing this instrument, really about that life,” Fonville says.

“What impressed me about him is he’s so young, but he’s playing the language of older jazz,” Parker says. “When you play a medium, meat-and-potatoes swing thing in a classic organ-guitar trio format, you can tell he loves it… When I find people who are committed to the art form, it’s refreshing for me.”

 

Fribush’s catalog has grown impressively over the past handful of years through a lot of totally different combos, together with a number of releases alongside his mentor, Charlie Hunter, and a blisteringly funky 2025 album referred to as “Another Side of the Sound” that options guitarist Ari Teitel of Dumpstaphunk and drummer Adam Deitch of Lettuce within the trio setting. Yet the chord he’s struck by partnering with Corey Fonville is resonating otherwise.

ACC territory

Part of that’s the results of Fonville’s type of enjoying, which Butcher Brown followers know to be extremely detailed and fluid, like a free-flowing dialog. “Corey has this amazing way of playing lyrically,” Fribush says, “so it’s almost like you have two vocalists, but we’re on these rhythm section instruments.”

Fribush additionally credit geography — the way in which that North Carolinians and Virginians share a musical vocabulary as regional neighbors. “The music feels very, very fresh, and we’re drawing from all our inspirations,” Fribush says. “All the stuff that we’re listening to is pretty modern, and I think that’s the unique approach that we’re bringing to this project, versus some other organ projects that you hear, which are very rooted in the funk and the boogaloo and the straight ahead swing… It comes from the ACC [Atlantic Coast Conference] region. Our roots with gospel music, folk music — it also just comes from being true improvisers. And I think it’s creating this amazing blend of sonic stuff.”

“This cat is cut from the same soil,” Fonville remembers considering as soon as Fribush started spending extra time within the Butcher Brown orbit. The interaction on “What Day Is It” appears exceedingly pure. Preordained. Listen a number of occasions and also you would possibly sense that songs like “Clean Sheets” and “Dinner Bell” all the time existed. Fribush has even stuffed in on keys for Butcher Brown, throughout a stretch of the group’s 2025 touring wherein co-founder and keyboardist DJ Harrison needed to keep near residence for well being causes.

The duo is intently knit — each figuratively and actually. On social media and onstage, you’ll usually discover the organist and drummer in matching vests or work shirts due to a partnership with the Greensboro-based, vintage-inspired clothes firm, Hudson’s Hill — a visible manifestation of the Hammond organ’s workmanlike origins.

When it got here time to determine which label would launch “What Day Is It,” Fonville and Fribush discovered yet one more alternative to maintain the regional vibe going by hitting up Warren Parker, founding father of the Charlottesville-based label, ConflictHen Records. Releasing “What Day Is It” by means of a smaller label situated within the ACC area is a part of what Sam Fribush calls the duo’s “farm-to-table” strategy.

This is Corey Fonville’s second go-round with regards to partnering with ConflictHen, following Butcher Brown’s pre-pandemic tribute to Fela Kuti titled “Afrokuti.” Warren Parker was beforehand acquainted with Fribush as nicely, on account of the organist’s stint enjoying with folk-rock group Hiss Golden Messenger, which is led by a longtime pal of Parker’s, M.C. Taylor.

 

Parker helped e book a Fonville x Fribush present at Dirty Nelly’s in Charlottesville and walked away impressed. He calls it “one of the most fun nights that I’ve had in Charlottesville in years,” and he instantly noticed a through-line between the Fonville x Fribush partnership and certainly one of his favourite bands, the just lately reanimated organ trio, Medeski, Martin & Wood. “After the gig, I was flying really high on it. It resonated really deeply. And I just put it out there. I was like, ‘Listen, if you guys want to roll the dice with my little basement record label, I’m happy to do this with you,’” Parker remembers.

A farm-to-table product

ConflictHen is understood for facilitating small runs of vinyl through project-based, handshake agreements with artists. The particular Blue Chips variant — a nod to the album’s opening track — bought out rapidly, and the usual black model is almost gone as nicely. For Fonville, there’s a wedding of kind and performance with regards to urgent an organ trio album to vinyl. “I’m excited about having a record — actual physical vinyl — because I know how important that is for this type of music,” Fonville says.

The all-in-the-family vibe extends to how the bodily product got here collectively. Liner notes had been written by Phil Cook, a central determine in North Carolina’s music scene and fellow Hiss Golden Messenger alum who has an album of his own in WarHen’s catalog. (“Corey, Sam and Alan have each followed the path using their divine gifts to witness and surrender to the blessed universal funky vibration,” Cook wrote.) Parker ended up contributing his personal self-taught inventive abilities by designing the album’s coastal cowl artwork, which was impressed by the minimalist appear and feel of the ECM label.

ConflictHen has all the time been a facet hustle for Parker; he describes it as a labor of affection that has been seeming “a little bit more labor than love” of late. Working on “What Day Is It” was like a shot within the arm. “It reinvigorated my appreciation of running the label and gave me a boost when I needed it,” Parker says. “For that, I’m grateful.”

His phrases echo Fonville’s personal sentiments about his sudden deal with organ-based music. “I’m grateful,” the drummer says. “It came at a great time in my life. It gives me more opportunities, musically, that I may not have in other spaces. It almost felt like this is what I was meant to do.”

“What Day Is It” will likely be launched on Friday, Feb. 27. To hear and buy the album, go to fonvillexfribush.bandcamp.com. To hear and buy the “R&B Organ Trio” EP, go to samfribush.bandcamp.com.

Fonville x Fribush will carry out with Charles Owens, Marcus Tenney and Morgan Burrs at Révéler on Saturday, March 7. The early present will begin at 7 p.m. and the late present will begin at 9:30 p.m. Admission is $30. For tickets, go to revelerexperiences.com.