VOLTO!'s High Voltage Lights Up La Ve Lee

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VOLTO!'s High Voltage Lights Up La Ve Lee

By Rachel Heller

Ziegler and Carey

For those of you who crumple like CD-wrap when faced with a band that eludes genre classification: Beware. VOLTO! will have you cowering - not because of the puny hat-wearing comic hero with whom they share a name, or even because of their formidable use of the exclamation point. VOLTO!'s music makes short work of the "Jazz" section, busts out of "Blues," and rises above even - gasp! - the ever-reliable "Pop/Rock." These four super-musicians have a higher goal than fitting neatly into your disc book: reinventing some of the best tunes ever set to treble.

VOLTO!'s is the music many of you wish you'd grown up with, and most of you did. Citing influences from Jimi Hendrix to Miles Davis, guitarist John Ziegler describes VOLTO! as a love letter to the band's roots. "I said, 'What if we put together a jam band, and played all the music we grew up on?'" This turned out to be a good idea. Founded by riff-master Ziegler in 2003, the band was rounded out by vocalist/keyboardist Kirk Covington, bassist Lance Morrison, and drummer Danny Carey. They have garnered loyal legions in little over a year.

Morrison and Covington

With a name like VOLTO!, you would assume their music is electric. And shock you it will - when the classics roll out of Volto!'s amps, it feels like your first time all over again. The band's August 19th show at jazz joint La Ve Lee gave old-time jams a new-school edge, feeding "fusion jazz" a rowdy dose of funk-rock. "The rock thread runs through everything," Ziegler says. "Even the jazz and blues we play is pretty rocking."

Seeing VOLTO! live is like reaching into a grab bag (minus the cheap plastic bangles and "Wooly Willy" books) - you never know what you're going to get. But hey, neither do they! Coming to a show with their gear tuned up and a few basic melodies up their sleeves is the beauty of a jam band, Ziegler explains. "It's fun to play, it's an outlet for expression. The beginnings and endings of songs are usually train wrecks," he chuckles.

No one could tell. La Ve Lee was a row of nodding heads and tapping boots during VOLTO!'s set. At times, the band spewed dead-on rock, backboned by Morrison's hearty bass lines and Carey's steam engine drumming. Other times, the meandering melodies of jazz prevailed; Ziegler mounted an awesome display of finger-work, while Covington's soul-spawned wails added a solid edge to the spacey psychedelia of the music.

Better a train wreck than lab-cloned stock rock, Ziegler affirms. "Everyone is used to hearing music that's been rehearsed and polished," he says. "We say, let's wail!" <Insert Bill and Ted-style breakdown here.> First time show-goer Vic Burroughs, for one, was impressed. "They could've fooled me. What they played could have been rehearsed 100 times or more, for all I knew." A new fan in the making? Not a surprise. "I didn't know what to expect, but after that first tune I said 'hot dog!' They nailed it on the first try."

VOLTO! is a sort of vacation for its members, whose other projects range from the mainstream to the eccentric. Kirk Covington, widely renowned for his drumming, has performed with guitarist (and La Ve Lee regular) Scott Henderson and their jazz-fusion group Tribal Tech, among many others; VOLTO! showcases his keyboard and vocal talents. For Lance Morrison, the band follows studio work with Alanis Morissette and Don Henly, and the 2001 release of his solo album, "Einstein's Brain."

John Ziegler brings to his musical creation the immense talent put forth in his more than ten years teaching experience, and the sinfully horrorshow Pigmy Love Circus. Danny Carey, Ziegler's band mate in both Pigmy Love Circus and VOLTO!, is also praised for his work with Tool. "It's nice to play something different," Carey says of VOLTO!. "This is the music I grew up with."

With their solid improvisations growing ever stronger, their fan base undergoing mitosis, and a recording session on the horizon, the band itself is growing up. Could VOLTO! signal the dawn of a new musical era? "What we're doing is what I wish more musicians would do," Ziegler muses. "Everyone's into making it perfect. We're just a bunch of slobs jamming."

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Visit the band's site at www.VOLTOband.com, learn more about lessons with Volto!'s guitar guru at www.johnzguitar.com, and check out La Ve Lee's upcoming events at www.laveleejazzclub.com.