Crusaders

Taking a guess on how long ago someone put the funk in modern jazz, younger listeners might go for the late 70s. The Jazz Crusaders, though ­travelling under other names then, did it more than 20 years earlier – emerging as a Houston high-school band in the early 50s, which soon evolved a ­characteristically danceable (and eventually bankable) take on the period's earthy hard-bop jazz style. The current legacy version of the band is fronted by the spirited original ­trombonist Wayne Henderson. The opening classic Stomp and Buck Dance was a model of all the things that made the Crusaders different in the hooky opening motif with its ­jazzily time-bending repeat and irresistible rhythm-section shuffle. A virtuoso thumb-slapping electric bassist (David Hughes), a fine rhythm guitarist and languidly hip soloist (Brian Price) and a keyboardist with much of ­legendary founder Joe Sample's incisive ­phrasing (Joel Gaines) powered the dancefloor atmosphere, underpinned by the ­dramatic drumming of Moyes Lucas. But it was Henderson on slide and valve trombones, and the powerful and unusually woody-toned ­saxophonist Paul Russo, who most enriched the spaces between catchy ­melodies. Henderson's car-horn blare and sharp-accented solos ­contrasted with Russo's dense, attack and ­squalling ­Coltranesque multiphonics on tenor sax. With Russo on soprano, the two shared animated ­contrapuntal ­improvisations on a ­makeover of Eleanor Rigby and on Keep That Same Old Feeling, though the ­latter was one of the more ­unmemorable themes in a long set. Resident Ronnie Scott's soul singer Natalie Williams guested for Street Life, and her ­exuberance and ­obvious empathy with the ­Crusaders' ­subtle-funk ethos lifted the band and the audience.