Kneebody
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Aaron Cohen - Downbeat "Kneebody Creating a New Language" At first, it seems that Kneebody chose a name that intentionally invited anonymity. After speaking to a couple members of the quintet, it becomes clear that they also took a firm stance against presenting a single bandleader. Equally crucial is that they wanted to invent a word that conveys no preconceived musical connotations.

"It's a nonsense word that my girlfriend came up with," said saxophonist Ben Wendel. "We wanted a short, memorable word with a nondefinable genre connection." This collaborative dismissal of categorical purity runs throughout Kneebody's self-titled debut on Greenleaf Music. Serene keyboard and woodwind lines are played on top of driving rock drums. Orchestrated electronic noise flows into classically formed melodies.

Each musical shift is episodic, rather than merely contrasting. Kneebody's hybrids stem from influences on both American coasts. Wendel met trumpeter Shane Endsley, keyboardist Adam Benjamin and bassist Kaveh Rastegar when they all attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., during the late 1990's. As the individual musicians migrated among different jazz, rock and hip-hop groups, they performed together as a part of a weekly residency at the Temple Bar in Santa Monica, Calif., with drummer Nate Wood. "We basically wanted to do stuff that was less about standard form," Wendel said. All of which requires some rules to make it continually interesting. So Kneebody created their own.