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I went to see the Realistic Orchestra on a lark, really. They were playing at Yerba Buena Gardens for free on a Saturday, and I happened to be in the area with my wife, shopping. I wasn’t even really planning to write a review, but I was fairly impressed.

The first thing that struck me about the Realistic Orchestra is how much they are into groove, mostly funk and R&B. Their instrumentation is pretty standard for a jazz orchestra: saxes, trombones, trumpets, guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, but they base almost everything around grooves. Not always in 3/4 or 4/4. I wasn’t paying that much attention, but I caught them doing 7/8 at one point.

The arrangements are pretty dense — there’s always something interesting going on. The charts don’t have an organic feel to them. They seem heavily worked out, as though the arranger was saying to him or herself, “Hmmm, I need to have a quiet section here, some dynamic changes there, I need to move through each section of the orchestra…” etc. They don’t develop organically. However, they do develop logically, so they’re fun to follow.

In fact, that’s a key aspect to the Realistic Orchestra — their sense of fun. They did a couple of numbers with vocalist Dublin (of the Shotgun Wedding Quintet), which is the first time I’ve heard a rapper with a big band. I really liked the rap about pirates. It was quite witty.

Their covers also show a lot of taste. They did a couple of Stevie Wonder tunes, Visions and Contusion. I thought the way Contusion was arranged was particularly astute. It was so natural, you would have thought Wonder wrote Contusion as a big band piece. Maybe best of all was a cover of Hendrix’s Spanish Castle Magic. This is not a tune I would normally think to arrange for big band, but the Realistic Orchestra arranged it to sound something like vintage Blood Sweat and Tears, which fits the tune better than you would think. Hardly anyone can sing Hendrix tunes without embarrassing themselves, but guest vocalist Joe Bagale managed the trick quite nicely by approaching it by way of Hendrix’s R&B roots, kind of in the style of Otis Redding, although obviously not quite at that level. (By the way, Joe Bagale and his band will be appearing at The Great American Music Hall tonight, so if you live in the Bay Area, come out and support them.)

Unfortunately, there were some technical flaws in the presentation. The keyboardist, whose name I didn’t catch, had what seemed to be an excellent solo on the first tune of the set, but he was so far down in the mix that I couldn’t really tell. After that tune, the problem was corrected, but guitarist Joe Monahan never was loud enough. This became especially obvious on his solo for Spanish Castle Magic.

Speaking of the solos, I’m aware that it’s unfair to compare these guys to the best in the business, the John Scofields and Michael Breckers and Chick Coreas and so on, but that’s who I’m used to listening to. And no, the guys in the Realistic Orchestra aren’t as adept in sculpting a solo in order to make complex ideas as simple as possible the way truly great improvisors are, but they’re never less than interesting either. None of these guys are bums. They can all play. What that means in context is that they’re fun to listen to live.

So, if you get the chance to check out the Realistic Orchestra (they play at Bruno’s on Mission Street in San Francisco the first Tuesday of every month — hint, hint), I urge you to do so. You’ll have a good time. By the same token, these guys are part of a loose collective known as the Jazz Mafia. (Editor’s Note: the Realistic Orchestra’s Tuesday gig has been moved to Coda Jazz and Supper Club @ 1710 Mission St near Duboce, starting Tuesday August 4th. For more information on the Coda Jazz and Supper Club, go to http://www.codalive.com/.) The guys in the Realistic Orchestra belong to something like a dozen other bands. My guess is that a lot of these bands would be fun to listen to also.

Here’s my advice. Check out http://www.jazzmafia.com/ for details on all of the different bands associated with the Jazz Mafia. If you live in the Bay Area, and want to go out and hear some live high quality jazz, http://www.jazzmafia.com/ also has information on where and when these guys play. If you go, you’ll be supporting local musicians and probably won’t have to pay as much money as you would for a national act.

Just to give you an idea of what you’re in for, here’s some snippets from the Realistic Orchestra’s live date at Brunos:

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