WICN Artist of the Month, August 2024: Organ Fairchild
Written by Doug Hall on August 1, 2024
Anytime a local band in the New York and New England area finds itself voted #1 out of 64 up-and-coming bands in NYS Music’s statewide March Madness competition (in 2021), it is significant. Buffalo-based band Organ Fairchild has been described as “a musical party that won’t quit.” As referenced in the biography category on AllAboutJazz.com, Joe Bellanti (organ and keyboards); Corey Kertzie (drums and percussion); and Dave Ruch (guitar) create their own style and mix of genres: “Take your old-school organ trio, add dance-heavy grooves and adventurous jamming, and shake vigorously. Enjoy all night long.”
A tight trio, they manage a classical/hybrid jazz style while stretching out each instrumental on guitar, keyboards, and drums. Organ Fairchild’s second release Leisure Suit, ( self-published, 2023), continues an exploration of jazz genres from their Monk-inspired Chamelonious Monk, featuring a rocking give and take between keyboards and guitar, to guitarist Ruch’s Santana-flavored fretwork on Morning Coffee. As effectively found on a more major gig-oriented band like (John) Scofield, (John) Medeski, and (Billy) Martin, reframing pop covers into jazz arrangements (refer to Scofield, Medeski, and Martin’s take on Light My Fire on the release Juice in 2014), can offer opportunities to restate classic songs on your own terms. On Leisure Suit, each band member helps transform Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter’s He’s Gone almost beyond recognition. There is also a mix of original material, including Kertzie’s Glad You’re Here, which allows the bandmates to further stretch their chops.
Many of the songs on their albums and especially in their potent live performances by Organ Fairchild are tributes to Grateful Dead material, reimagined for a jazz trio. In a recent interview on SiriusXM’s Grateful Dead channel, guitarist Dave Ruch speaks of the “bottomless well” of the Grateful Dead songbook. The band’s most recent release, 2024’s Songs We Didn’t Write, takes this notion ever further, with an assortment of songs from icons including Bob Marley, Grateful Dead, Leonard Cohen, and The Beatles, with Jorma Kaukonen of Hot Tuna joining Organ Fairchild for a gritty rendition of Otis Redding’s Hard to Handle. In this same interview, Ruch talks about how a cover “gets knocked about in the band” to see if it works out. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh-aoOLXZDk)
From a traditional jazz perspective, Organ Fairchild’s approach is more a groove-based and jamming force, eschewing any hint of the smoky nightclub atmosphere. Ruch again speaks of the arrangement as “a super fun format, and there’s a lot of space…and if any one of us [band mates] want to go in a different direction, it’s real easy to pick up on that, and veer off into left field for a while.”
Their debut album, Brewed in Buffalo, was released in 2021, yet their relationship as friends and bandmates goes back over 40 years to when they played in high school band formations, including as Grateful Dead tribute band Wild Nights, together in Williamsville, New York, a suburb of Buffalo.
Regrouping in 2020 during the pandemic, Organ Fairchild’s bandmates are now later-age adults, often on the road in a van with late-blooming regional success and getting 4 hours of sleep between gigs. Guitarist Ruch laughed and said “we’re behaving as if we’re half our age,” finding themselves at music festivals where other band’s lineups are younger than their children. Their enthusiasm and regional following continues to expand with every show and festival performance, introducing new listeners, regardless of age, to a unique and joyful style of music.
Organ Fairchild headlines WICN’s Jazz+ Live concert on Friday, August 23. Learn more and get tickets here.
