darkshade "Get Down!" indeed. This EP is great. Some of the best soul-jazz and funk-jazz you'll find. Excellent guitar work from Eric Krasno, great drums from Alan Evans, and solid organ from brother Neal Evans, who also plays the bass parts on the organ; this band has no bassist. What's especially outstanding about this album, is this basically an album that documents the first time the 3 of these guys playing together. It sounds like they've been playing together for years. The album (well it's an EP, but it's long enough to be an album) is the reason these guys formed Soulive, one of the most successful jazz bands in the 2000s.

This music is like if Pat Martino fused with John Scofield, and played with Jimmy Smith, but an element of funk is also here, and the band would further the funky sound on future albums. Here, the band had never played with each other, so the focus is on head>improv>head for the most part, with funky grooves and slick melody lines.

A couple of these songs can be found on their proper debut album "Turn It Out", but here they are in a more raw form, with different execution. This was my first Soulive album, and not a bad place to start, this way you can see the progression from here until their third album, before they started introducing vocals and hip-hop to their sound. A great soul-jazz album was heavy doses of funk.