Having earned international popularity as a top artist on the touring circuit, Karl Denson is still intent on expanding the perception of his music. The newest album from Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, The Bridge deepens the group’s dynamic sound with the help of hip-hop activist Michael Franti of Spearhead, street poet Saul Williams, members of Blackalicious, and legendary horn players Fred Wesley and Roy Hargrove.
With Denson’s vocals figuring prominently in the mix, The Bridge represents both a decisive new musical step and a return to the ideas Denson explored as founder and leader of The Greyboy Allstars, all of which he insists is a clearer indication of who he is as a musician. "I kind of look at myself as a DJ," says Denson. "A good DJ is gonna spin instrumentals and vocal tracks."
Having worked with a broad range of artists including DJ Greyboy, rocker Lenny Kravitz and funk legend Fred Wesley, Denson should know. From the beginning of his musical education, the California native filtered both the funk and soul of Motown and Stax with the deep searching of jazzmen like Yusef Lateef, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and, of course, John Coltrane. Denson took this latent love of musical freedom with him as he worked with Lenny Kravitz, recording and touring with Kravitz during the rock star’s most liberated period of music-making – the Let Love Rule and Mama Said albums of the early 90s. During this same period, Denson and DJ Greyboy’s "Unwind Your Mind" collaboration became the top dance track in Europe. "I remember touring with Lenny overseas and hearing that tune in every club we went to after the gigs," says Denson.
Later, his organic, free form aesthetic characterized the world-renowned groove band The Greyboy Allstars and five equally bold solo albums. Denson’s broad range of projects has earned him a reputation as a groundbreaking musician equally potent as a masterful collaborator and an innovative solo artist.
Denson further cemented this reputation when he formed Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe in 1998 and released Dance Lesson #2 last year. A multigenre mix of music, the album earned immense critical praise. But while some bands that find popularity become trapped by the expectations of their fan base, The Bridge is evidence that KDTU refuses to be pinned down. Songs like the R&B-flavored "Because Of Her Beauty" and "The Answer" are full of passion, and then the music shifts again, to the politicized Curtis Mayfield classic "Check Out Your Mind" and the afrobeat of the Fela Kuti tribute "Freedom."
"This project is just who I am. It’s a mix between my own ideas and the music of people like Fela Kuti," Denson explains. "With Fela you gotta dig him for a while – like James Brown – to get really deep into the music and what he was trying to say with it."
"After 10 records you feel like you’ve enriched someone’s life," says Denson. And yet there’s something that keeps him moving forward. "The idea is to find something I like and help it cross over. I like and listen to all kinds of music. We’ve always just played what we like, and the audience came to us."
If it sounds as if he’s enjoying the best of both worlds, perhaps that’s because he is. The Bridge crosses the accessible neo-soul of icons like Erykah Badu and D’Angelo with the rock sensibility of Beck and Ben Harper. One listen to the album reveals the band’s hard-earned integrity and a distinctive sound that defies simple categorizations. As both a student and a purveyor of a tradition that includes James Brown and Jimi Hendrix as much as it does the Roots and Outkast, Denson knows that the meaning is in the music – however you classify it.
