Review: Busty and the Bass show range at The Troubadour

A live setting is integral to the jazz experience, adding another layer to the rich instrumentation that shines through on recordings. For guitarist Louis Stein from the Montreal-based band Busty and the Bass, seeing those listener reactions while performing in intimate venues always puts a smile on his face.

“It’s not just a sea of heads, you can see individual reactions and when somebody really digs something,” Stein said, comparing the setting to larger festivals that draw crowds in the thousands. “It gives me flashbacks to when we wrote that part or made that arrangement choice, it just brings it full circle.”

The band garnered plenty of those visual responses at their Wednesday night show at The Troubadour, even returning for an encore after being summoned by applause. Weaving through its catalogue, Busty and the Bass dipped between moods, sounds and styles with ease, always keeping the audience on their toes for what was coming next.

Lead singer Nick Ferraro stole the show with his expressive vocals, as well as his talents on the saxophone. Equal parts passionate and joyful, Ferraro showed his versatility over the various styles of music provided by the band behind him, putting on a performance that had something for everyone.

After years of working with Ferraro, Stein mentioned how the singer has pushed him to be as precise as possible when it comes to songwriting, so the flow of the song can resonate as deeply as the story in his lyrics.

“From Nick, I’ve learned to be super picky with every lyric and every word; he’s a vocalist, so he makes sure that every word sounds good,” Stein said. “The rhythm and the emphasis, and keeping that flow as important as the meaning behind it, that’s been really cool.”

Stein says Busty and the Bass is more of a community than a band, creating a natural chemistry that’s grown as they’ve toured over the years. Everyone brings their own unique influences and musical traits to the table, and for Stein, that trait is his ability to push the band’s performance even further when they play together.

“When the band is cooking at a seven out of 10, I like to be the guy that pushes it a little more, when everyone is like, ‘Should we do it one more time?’” Stein said. “I’ll try to do something that encourages everyone to just go for it. Guitar-wise, just expanding textures, like the fact that we have keys doing chords, and then horns doing lead melodies, it puts the guitar in this interesting position of having to create its own space.”

Stein made the most of his time when he had his own space at the Troubadour on Wednesday, stunning the crowd with endless guitar riffs during his solos. During an extended instrumental break midway through the show, however, keyboardist Eric Haynes delivered perhaps the solo of the night, ratcheting up the improvisational value at every turn even after he’d already drawn earnest applause.

Busty and the Bass recognizes what can be accomplished in the group setting, allowing everyone to shine rather than pushing one individual forward into the spotlight. Their newest album Uncommon Good highlights this mentality, recognizing the musical landscape around them and how the group is bucking the norm by including so many different personalities under one name.

“In an era dominated by solo artists, we really believe in the power of the band and creative collaboration,” Stein said. “In some parts it was a painful process to come up with, but what we ended up finding was this common denominator that everyone could agree was dope, and touched on something that was true for them.”

It would have been easy for the album and the rest of their discography to linger within the realm of jazz, as each band member has an extensive background in the genre, but Stein said their aspirations for more have pushed them to craft their own individual sound that can connect with listeners no matter their musical preferences. The band already incorporates a wide range of styles in their music, but going forward, Stein wants to work more with hip-hop and old school funk as well as ambient, experimental sounds.

“There’s such a ceiling for jazz, it’s just a smaller world which makes it harder to reach as many people,” he said. “Just the nature of having so many people, everyone has their own take on what else they’re interested in, and our sound is just a product of that.”