War at BB Kings

I never really listened to WAR during their heyday in the 1970s. Although as a kid I do recall thinking Cisco Kid and Why Can’t We Be Friends we cool songs when they played on the local top-40 station. A bit later when Cheech & Chong movies brought Low Rider blaring into my consciousness it seemed a perfect anthem for the drug counterculture.

Many years later when I moved to New York I began to notice that any time a funky War song came on the sound system at hipster loft parties the entire room was energized. Just a couple years ago I finally checked out the band when I picked up their greatest hits CD.

I went to their BB King performance on a whim, but was nicely surprised by how good the show was. I really didn’t realize how many bug hits the band had. The hour and a half concert was pretty much a hit package from beginning to end. While they were playing hits that were decades old, the song usually acted as a framework for extended funk jams. Usually I am not a big fan of jams bands, but a combination of musical virtuosity and old-fashioned showbiz antics kept the performance fun and interesting even during long jams.

Lead singer and keyboardist Lonnie Jordan brought humor and charisma as front-man. Each musician had his moment in the spotlight and was able to take control of the stage and capture the audience’s attention with presence to spare. Of particular note was the band’s saxophonist/flutist (Whose name I couldn’t find, even on their website) During an extended solo section he wandered through audience playing to people and hamming it up all the way.

One of the unique things about War’s sound is the use of the blues harmonica as an element of the horn section. While a funk horn section usually features at least a minimum of two saxophones and a trumpet, War’s section consisted of one sax and the harp. The combination was surprisingly potent and provided a distinct sound that upon reflection, I realize I unconsciously associate with ‘Latina funk.’

Among the hits they played were Cisco Kid, Spill The Wine, Low Rider, Why Can’t We Be Friends, and The World Is A Ghetto. Low Rider the final song of the set and was used to introduce the band and let each player take a solo. Each solo section transformed into a brief segment from another song. The harp player’s solo transformed into a slow blues groove, the bass player’s into Cream’s Sunshine Of Your Love, the percussionist’s into Santana “Lava,” and the guitar player’s into “Iron Man.”

Throughout the show I kept thinking how fun and creative the music and performance were, and comparing that to how boring most young bands that I see are. On one hand rock musicians have seemed to lost contact with showbiz sthick. They see it as too corny to think of themselves as entertainers. Unfortunately with that a lot of fun and humor is lost. Musically the desire to break out of genre formulas and mix and match styles has made much of the new music dreadfully boring. War freely mixed Latin, rock, funk, and jazz into a potpourri that made each song sound fresh to the ear. Their best songs featured exciting rhythms, strong melodies, meaningful lyrics, and catchy vocal harmonies.