Umphrey’s McGee bassist Ryan Stasik, 29, sounds a bit dismayed by the sextet’s jam-band label. “I guess it’s kind of true. We do jams in our band,” says Stasik wearily. “But we really try to do a variety of genres–everything from jazz to funk to fusion to heavy metal. I don’t worry too much about how it’s labeled. We’re actually going to start telling people we play Amish goth rock.”
Much of Umphrey’s jam status is due to the company the band keeps. Its most recent album, “Anchors Drop,” was released in 2004 on the String Cheese Incident’s Sci Fidelity Records, and the band has played everything from the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tenn to the Jam Cruise, a week-long Caribbean venture that featured performances from dozens of like-minded artists. In 2005, the group even earned its first Jammy (the genre’s Grammys), winning Song of the Year for the hypnotic “In the Kitchen.”
But even as the band has become synonymous with the jam scene, its albums have drifted away from the open-ended explorations that define the genre.
“Anchors” still has a prog-rock, King Crimson hue, and occasional Frank Zappa-worthy instrumental freakouts (“Miss Tinkle’s Overture”). But a majority of the album is more restrained. Only four of its 14 tracks clock in over five minutes, and the band even delivers a folksy, back-porch lament with “Bullhead City,” a song that wouldn’t sound out of place on an Uncle Tupelo record.
Umphrey’s forthcoming album “Safety In Numbers,” recorded last January at Gravity Studios in Chicago for a planned April 2006 release, finds the band moving even further from its roots. “The tone of the record is darker and it’s less exploratory in the jams,” says Stasik. “I wouldn’t say that all the songs are radio friendly, but they’re definitely more so on this record than anything else we’ve done.”
Does all this refinement threaten to sour the fans who helped Umphrey’s become a jam success story?
“I don’t think so,” says Kevin Morris, president of Sci Fidelity. “There are still songs on the record with lots of time changes and starts and stops that hardcore fans will embrace. Besides, while [fans] may love the improvisation, at the end of the day there’s gotta be a connection to the songs. And these are some of the strongest songs these guys have ever written.”
An early incarnation of Umphrey’s first formed in November 1997 in South Bend, Ind., when Stasik got together with Joel Cummins (keyboards) and Brendan Bayliss (guitars/vocals) while attending the University of Notre Dame. Jake Cinninger (guitars/vocals), Andy Farag (percussion) and drummer Kris Myers round out the band’s current lineup.
The group moved to Chicago in 2000 and built up its audience the old-fashioned way–through non-stop touring (the band logged more than 150 shows in 2004 and even more this year) and word-of-mouth. The work has paid off with coast-to-coast success. In New York City, where Umphrey’s used to play tiny clubs such as the Lion’s Den and Wetlands, it now sells out the1,500-capacity Irving Plaza. And on a recent trip to San Francisco, the band sold out the legendary Fillmore.
Umphrey’s McGee, 6:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Aragon Ballroom, 1106 W. Lawrence Ave. $27.50; 773-561-9500.
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