It’s arguably some of the hippest music around. Music from artists like Grant Green or Herbie Hancock, along with other musicians that made up the Bluenote Records roster of the mid to late1960s. File it all under jazz, soul and funk, it’s laid back, loaded with funk and groove-heavy rhythms, and just downright cool, pulled from a smokey club from decades ago. Its also what local quartet The Quarks, who are guitar player Jason Lemon, bass player Kiev Simonfy, drummer Zach Olivier and keyboardist Matt Stanton, have been specializing in playing since forming just over a year ago.
The Quarks will perform Friday at El Rancho Tavern.
They’re a band of music lovers who formed over the love of the genre, born at the loose jams that happened weekly at the Starlight, along with the jazz jam hosted by iAM MUSIC.
They started in September 2022 as a trio of Lemon, Simonfy and Oliver, until Stanton and his wife started showing up at the jams simply to enjoy the music. When Stanton’s wife asked if they wanted some additional keyboards, they of course said yes, Matt joined the band, and the quartet was born; that was right after Snowdown earlier this year.
“There’s vision there, it wasn’t an accident. I wanted to specifically play funky, soul music, dance music and we wanted to get gigs,” Lemon said from a full-band interview in June. “We had a goal there, like what’s our focus? We knew that the right thing would come, and we let it form organically. We focused on learning new tunes. In the winter, we were doing two practices a week and showing up at the Starlight jam and the iAM MUSIC jazz jam, pretty frequently.”
If you go
WHAT: Soul, funk, jazz with The Quarks.
WHEN: 7 p.m. Friday.
WHERE: El Rancho Tavern, 975 Main Ave.
TICKETS: No Cover.
MORE INFORMATION: Call 259-8111
They then started to hit it hard, with shows at any venue that would have them, and that included pop-up shows played in random places. But then they started to build an actual performance over just loose jams, all in an effort to solidify a sound via classic soul and funk.
“We’ve tried to stay current, that was our goal when we first got together as a trio, was to kind of get a residency somewhere and build a local following of people that wanted to come hang out, dance and have a good time. But then once we got together as a quartet and started getting more focused about our setlist and the music that we really wanted to play, and that we would all enjoy, that everyone would be down to play at the drop of a hat,” Lemon said. “We realized it was better to ease back and play just a few, go quality over quantity.”
This is not your average cover band, even though they are technically playing “covers.” It’s not, however, the low-hanging fruit of tunes you’d hear on commercial radio, or from a predictable setlist of hits from the last four decades. This band is pulling from a select catalog from some of the heavy hitters of the jazz, soul and funk world, rhythm-heavy tunes originally played by the hands of the likes of Cannonball Adderley, Freddie Hubbard, The Meters or Al Green. It’s the roots of American soul and funk, music that’s “cool” in every sense of the word.
“We’ve had a lot of people say, ‘you guys should write music,’ and I think we’ve all stressed we’re down for it, but I can’t write anything better than Herbie Hancock at the moment,” Lemon admitted quite honestly. “A lot of these tunes that we’re playing are just amazing tunes. We’re lovers of this music, and when we get together and play it’s such a fun outlet.”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
