Born as a studio spinoff from the sprawling, funk-laden world of Snarky Puppy, Ghost-Note has turned into the band with nine lives.
While still built on the preternatural rhythm section tandem of drummer Robert “Sput” Searight and percussionist Nate Werth, the group arrives in Oakland for two shows at Yoshi’s Nov. 25-26 featuring a revamped eight-piece lineup.
Featuring the smoldering soul pipes of Mackenzie Green, Ghost-Note brings a new vocals-up-front sound and a recent album, “Mustard n’Onions,” that’s no less ferociously grooving than the project’s two previous releases. But listening to each of the three records one could easily think there are several bands called Ghost-Note on the concert circuit.
“The simplest explanation is the evolution has been shocking in some ways,” Werth said. “When you listen to the albums, they’re all very different. You have to remember that this started as a concept album for drums and percussion, to capture this unique brotherhood that Sput and I have.”
Searight was something of a studio legend by the time he joined Snarky Puppy in 2006. He’d won a Grammy for the 1997 album “God’s Property,” earning the award in the “best gospel choir or chorus album” category with a Dallas ensemble founded by his mother, Linda Ray Hall-Searight. While the album was co-produced by urban gospel great Kirk Franklin, “I never considered what I was doing in gospel,” Searight said.
“Our music wasn’t accepted in the Black church. The pastors and elders were not having it, but youth organizations loved us and embraced us. There was no outlet to see us unless they came to secular venues.”
After several years of touring with God’s Property, Searight decided to try his luck in Los Angeles, where “Terrace Martin was my liaison,” he said, referring to the multi-instrumentalist and producer who toured with God’s Property before working closely with rap superstar Kendrick Lamar and saxophonist Kamasi Washington.
“I was a mentor to him, and as a return favor Terrace took care of me when I moved to L.A. My first job was with Snoop Dogg,” said Searight, who went on to work as a drummer and producer with Justin Timberlake, Kendrick Lamar and Timbaland.
He joined Snarky Puppy as a keyboardist, but his trap set prowess soon made it clear that Searight belonged behind a drum kit. He and Werth spent more than a decade touring and recording with the collective as it won Grammys and became a musical institution with its own label, GroundUP Music, and the GroundUP Music Festival in Miami.
By 2014, Searight and Werth’s rhythm section act had taken on a life of its own, as their extraordinary bandstand connection — “like fraternal twins,” Searight said — took root. “What started happening was, instead of me taking drum solos by myself, they became percussion duos,” Searight said. “We were playing the same cadences and doing the same things. Fans would go crazy over it.”
Spending weeks in the studio laying down percussion tracks they created 2015’s “Fortified,” an expansive jazz-meets-hip-hop soundscape featuring a handful of Snarky guests. The album’s success led them to take the music on the road, but rather than going bankrupt transporting tons of percussion gear they teamed up with Werth’s older brother, drummer Nick Werth, who turned his midi mallet percussion rig into a horn section, string quartet and percussionist battery via sampling.
With studio time booked for a second album, Ghost-Note had to scrap the working book and develop a whole set of new material in two weeks when Nick Werth departed to pursue his own project. The result was 2018’s “Swagism,” which like “Fortified” topped the iTunes jazz chart.
Joined in the studio by friends like guitarist Raja Kassis, saxophonist Kamasi Washington, and guitarist Brandon “Taz” Niederauer, Ghost-Note turned the sessions into a raucous party. The material they developed provided a rubric for a new sound.
They toured until the pandemic shut down the music scene, and by the time they reassembled a band to get back on the road in the spring of 2021, “We sounded like a cover band of ourselves,” Searight said. Seeking a path back to their roots, Werth and Searight unleashed the vocal capabilities of their bandmates on a program of covers “or as we call them ‘blankets,’” Searight said.
Songs like Graham Central Station’s “Hair,” Al Green’s “Take Me to the River,” Average White Band’s “I’m the One,” the Gap Band’s “Steppin’ (Out),” James Brown’s “The Payback” and some Prince instrumentals still sometimes figure in the mix, but with “Mustard n’Onions” Ghost-Note is focusing on mixing the funky old ingredients into delectable new dishes.
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
GHOST-NOTE
When: 8 p.m. Nov. 25-26
Where: Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland
Tickets: $36-$69; yoshis.com