Riding the soul train

Like few other Oregon bands, funk, nu-jazz jam band Reeble Jar, has never released a studio album. Having been together for over eight years, all of their releases through the years have been completely live takes. Pop in one of their discs and you might not believe that was the case.

Their sound is full, alive and wanting to burst right out of your speakers. It has that funk magic that seems to slide right down your ears and into your soul, manifesting itself with a whiplash of a head bob.

The band consists of James Green on saxophone, Joey Hepner on bass, Sean Ponder on guitar, Josh Coffey on keys and Theo Halpert on drums. Ponder met Hepner in Portland and shortly thereafter moved to Eugene, where they met the other Reebles.

Ponder is a glass blower and a sound engineer at the Eugene venue Luckey’s, and Green is a wind surfer from England. Coffey, the keyboard player, is a cook while Hepner, is a delivery driver. Halpert is the 14th drummer the band has had. Together, they create the almighty force of Reeble Jar.

The typical audience at any given Reeble show will appear as a mass of movement, with people thumping out rhythmic patterns so solidly that it becomes reminiscent of shamanic rituals.

“We just have a really good time when we play music and we get the crowd moving,” Green said.

With a band that has been together for so long, the question of the quality of musicianship is, obviously, non-existent. Similarly one can expect to leave a Reeble show feeling satisfied, invigorated and a bit out of place in the real world of Portland’s dank midnight streets.

Thanks to years of practice, summers of touring America and the very nature of their music, these jam band veterans make it seem easy, breaking and creating grooves effortlessly.

Tomorrow the band will be playing with Philly’s Phunkestra and the Dirty Syncopators, an ideal lineup for those who like to get down.