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Karl Denson Leads His Tiny Universe Through A Jazz Dance Collective

Dr. John’s homegrown bayou funk hangs heavy in the air at Tipitina’s Uptown in New Orleans this Saturday night. The night trippers show ended about an hour ago, the hot and sweat-drenched masses have all made their way out of the club, and the bar hands swept up the plastic beer cups strewn all over the floor. It’s about 1am, and it looks a lot like closing time.

Hardly. This is Jazz Fest, when the music addicts don’t consider it a day until, well, tomorrow’s sun breaks through and light the horizon. So when saxophonist/flautist Karl Denson’s van pulls up to the club, the party is just getting cooking, with the grassy esplanade in the front of the club teaming with people looking for tickets for Karl Denson’s sold out sunrise show.

The night before at the House of Blues, Denson led the dance party until dawn with his band Tiny Universe. Being that seemingly every touring band in the country has found its way down to New Orleans for the Fest, Denson expanded the usual Tiny Universe sextet with special guests such as turntablist DJ Logic and a “Jam Band Allstars” saxophone section with Cochemea Gastelum from Robert Walters Twentieth Congress, Deep Banana Blackout’s Hope Claybourn, Ari Dvorin of Cabaret Diosa, and Casey Benjamin of Project Logic. His two set show, a Maceo Parker funk meets Lea Morgan boogaloo Jam, provided a vivid glimpse into a new jazz paradigm Denson envisions with his group.

“At a certain point, the whole jazz thing can become so academic that nobody wants to come out and have fun,” says San Diego-based Denson, who has been challenging the notion that jazz can’t be fun since the mid-90’s, first with the innovative groove band Grayboy Allstars (which disbanded in ’98) and now with his rapidly expanding Tiny Universe. “I’m just trying to be connected, to play music that for someone who really plays jazz, who knows the history, will listen and say, ‘Yeah, that’s the real thing. That reminds me of this or that,’ rather than something that just reminds them of pop music. I make dance music because that’s what jazz originally was.”

So less than 24 hours after the House of Blues show, Denson, a bit fatigued, with bags under his eyes but with an overriding eagerness to perform, motions to the stage at Tipitina’s on which he’ll lead another jazz dance party as he discusses the musical direction of the Tiny Universe. “Jazz is back in the hands of kids,” he says. “A few years ago, it was all about the acid jazz scene, which was more about just plain funk. The audience has matured, I can go up there tonight and play as much straight ahead as I play funk, and the audience will be just as responsive. We’re finally at a point now where a lot of band in the scene are pretty much free to do whatever we want to do as long as it’s creative and we’re pushing ourselves.”

For the complete article, check out Down Beat magazine September 2001 issue at www.downbeat.com