Orange crush

Crunchy-chord jam from Zyrah's Orange

By Don Fluckinger

Imagine a jam-band that plays very few country vibes, replacing that staple of the genre with hard funk, disco, and even '70s dinosaur-rock romps. Then give each of the band's

players a deep jazz background. That implausible combination describes Zyrah's Orange, a Boston trio who will celebrate the release of their new CD, Body, at the Tammany Club Saturday.

For jammers, Zyrah's Orange is a minimalist group -- just guitarist Elliot Page, bassist Ben Thibault, and drummer Dan Gullotti, who perform without any of the typical jam-band frills. No Stevie Wonder-inspired organist adding layers to the sound. No extra percussionist. No horn section. No background singer. No redundant solo or rhythm guitarist(s) to fill in the quiet spaces or to execute exotic transitions. Not even dancers beating claves or shaking tambourines.

Zyrah's Orange compensates for its slim personnel with three-part-harmony vocal arrangements, and, Page explains, -- no kidding -- "playing a whole lot of notes." That, and "playing really loud," he adds with a laugh.

"We all enjoy the trio setting because we have a lot of freedom," he goes on. "We're not stepping on somebody's toes if we want to play a lot one night and not a lot the next night. There's not a keyboard getting in the way -- Ben can play a lot of high notes and still hold down the bottom. Likewise for me, I can play a chord and voice it some way that doesn't conflict with the keyboard player -- because there is no keyboard player. With all of us singing as well, that adds three more things in there."

Page co-founded the band in 1995. Its current trio incarnation came together three years later, and Zyrah's Orange released its debut CD, Mind, in June of last year. All three members take music lessons that offer a peek into their individual musical orientations. Thibault studies with Boston jazzman Jerry Bergonzi, while Page works with Nigerian drummers. Gullotti also studies jazz, taking lessons from Uncle Bob, another Beantown jazz heavyweight who anchors the Fringe.

More urban than rural, more jazz than country, Body has nothing twangy about it. But there are plenty of other vibes, including a hard-disco groove on "Messages," inspired by a peculiar medley of covers the band has developed on stage over the past year featuring disco arrangements of Madonna's "Into the Groove" and the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This." Playing those grooves was so much fun, they evolved into an original song and inspired the new CD's cover-painting -- a leisure-suit-clad dancer under a disco ball -- by Boston artist Kate Chester.

"Body has in general a little more positive vibe to it; it's a little brighter-sounding, both in the music and the lyrics," says Page, who feels the songs are a lot better on the new album. "I was just trying to get down to the basics of song-writing. Mind has a lot of guitar licks on it and weird progressions, but it doesn't have the songs on it that Body does. Some of that was just because I was sitting around with an acoustic guitar on the porch, working the tunes out there."

The CD also features "Maceo," a funk homage to the James Brown groove master, and "Leave," which comes off as an acoustic-metal fusion a la Led Zeppelin and Jane's Addiction, two bands Page says have influenced him as a player. The best song, though, comes first: the infectious "Best Day," which tells the tale of a day in which nothing can -- or does -- go wrong. That tune, "pilfers a line from Jane's," Page says with apologies. The chorus hook is so strong that it's even worth a little improvisational reprise at the end of the CD.

"Jane's is the 1990s answer to Led Zeppelin," Page says. "Everybody thought Whitesnake and the metal bands of that year were sort of like Zeppelin. I was like, `Yeah, but as far as the spirit of what Zeppelin was about, Jane's carried the torch.' People from the folk scene to the indie rockers to punk kids, even to metal folk . . . everyone could dig Jane's, and I think that's something Zeppelin had going on -- they really covered a lot of ground."

Throughout the winter, Zyrah's Orange will canvass the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states, promoting their new CD at club gigs. After that comes the summer festival season, for which the band plan to book themselves around the region. The group also hope to find a record deal to help bankroll the travel expenses of a national tour -- which at this point, even for a trio, are prohibitive. "We all hold down day jobs during the week," Page says. "It's just a fact of life."

Zyrah's Orange play at 9:30 p.m. on December 2 at the Tammany Club with Moon Boot Lover. Cover is $7. Call (508) 791-6550.