Baltimore has long been a musical vacuum where many bands exist in its space but few are able to escape the void. The Bridge, a five-piece from the local area seem poised to break free of the city limits. Led by soul-searing guitar work, layered over a deep funk laden-groove, The Bridge is colored with flecks of mandolin and spots of vocal percussion used sparingly enough not to over take the listener and a sax player whose jazz sensibilities mesh nicely with the rest of the band’s more rock leanings. Steadily building their reputation and fan base over the past couple of years, the band seems on the verge of breaking out of that vacuum. A two month residency at the Funk Box came after a myriad of personal changes that slowed their momentum, but that summer stand showcased some of the strongest and most creative shows of their career.
I was able to sit down and talk with co-founder, lead singer and guitarist Cris Jacobs a few weeks later at the site of their residency, now re-christened the 8×10 Club, in downtown Baltimore during a regular open-mic night he hosts on Mondays. Jacobs played a short solo set with an odd assortment of covers and rarities that showed off his strong and inventive guitar skills. After his set finished we moved upstairs, and as the sounds of an avant-garde jazz fusion band rumbled in the background, our conversation started, as it always should, at the beginning. In Jacobs’ case, the beginning would be Jerry Garcia, “one of the reasons I picked up a guitar,” he said. He spoke of his decision after graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to devote himself fully to making it as professional musician, to practice and play as much as possible. His devotion is a trend that continues to this day, as Jacobs seems to be playing somewhere every night of the week, whether with the Bridge, hosting the open-mic night, doing weekly acoustic duo sets that he and mandolinist Kenny Liner play, or even moonlighting with the bluegrass band Smooth Kentucky. We spoke of Dead tours, Phish shows, and local bands, and eventually we worked our way into the origins of The Bridge and their historic first shows.
As the story goes, longtime friend Liner had returned from living in Hawaii, where he had recently picked up the mandolin, and the two got together as an acoustic duo, with no intentions beyond jamming a bit and making some music for themselves. But they received such a strong response, they decided to pursue it further. Recruiting some friends, the two played their first band gig at a backyard party—maybe not of mythical proportions, but a first show nonetheless—in the fall of 2001. “It was really the appreciation of our friends that forced us to start the band,” Jacobs explains. They put together a permanent line-up, enlisting friends and bandmates from other groups in the Baltimore area, and kept playing. They also developed a relationship with local promoter Tim Walther, who took a liking to what he heard and began to book them as the opener for larger national touring bands stopping in Baltimore. Opening shows for such bands as Strangefolk, Karl Denson, and Particle gave them immediate visibility and allowed them to rapidly develop a large fan base in the region.
Midway through our conversation, co-founder Liner burst into the room with boundless energy. Amidst bouncing around to grab a beer from the fridge, getting up to say hello to people as they came by, riffing about the effect pedals the jazz-fusion band was using downstairs, informing us of the correct pronunciation of Ukulele, and contemplating forming a death-metal band with a ukulele that would only play Don Ho covers, he leaned over and confided how important he felt the recently finished residency was and how well they had played as band. “We felt like we were doing something real special, and we hoped that there was someone around to capture it and let people know.”
Their shows during the residency were something special and may prove to be a defining moment. A few short months previous, they were a band drowning in a sea of change. They had recently added two new members, Adam Iorfida on sax and Dave Markowitz on bass, and at the same time were auditioning new drummers. But despite all the change, things had begun to get stale. Instead of moving forward, they were in a holding pattern which saw them breaking in two new players and learning how to play together, as well as dealing with a Spinal Tap-like rotation of drummers, ultimately trying out over twenty. While none of the drummers that filed through their rehearsal space spontaneously combusted, none of them entirely gelled with the other four either.
With summer approaching, they agreed to play an eight-week residency every Wednesday at the Funk Box. This would be their fourth time hosting such a residency at the club that now serves as their unofficial home base. They approached the shows with no plan and a sense of uncertainty. Using a revolving cast of drummers throughout the summer would impact what songs they would be able to play each night. And late one night in their van, there was even talk of writing out a setlist for the whole summer, but that idea only lasted until everyone fell back asleep.
I met up with the band once again a few days after the open-mic night at Liner’s house, which also serves as their practice space. Walking up the steps to the house, I heard Iorfida start up a short bouncy line on his horn that the rest of the band quickly latch on. Rehearsals have become commonplace again, after a period during which they were sporadic at best. Much of the time in rehearsal has been spent getting new drummer Mike Gambone, who joined at the end of the summer, up to speed with the band’s material. Gambone’s arrival finally solidified the line-up, with all five committing to the band full-time. Iorfida, who has been commuting from Queens to Baltimore for shows and practices, is even considering moving to Maryland permanently. The process of breaking in a new member has gone much smoother than when Iorfida and Markowitz joined. At that time, there were two new guys plus a new drummer seemingly every day. This time around, the musical bond between Jacobs, Liner, Iorfida, and Markowitz has been well established and battle tested over the summer’s residency, and as Liner says, “Dave [Markowitz] is no longer the new guy.” The four have a relaxed, easy attitude with each other that can only be achieved with good friends or people you have spent a great deal of time with each other. Markowtiz took time to compliment Liner, calling him, “…the world’s greatest beat-boxing mandolin player,” but lest anyone think he was too serious, quickly added, “Of course he might be the world’s only beat-boxing mandolin player.”
They have also been spending a large portion of practice preparing for their new album, which they started working on in December. As Jacobs talked about the upcoming album, he spoke with the guarded optimism of someone who can look around the room and see the potential that his band has, and knows the greatness they are capable of, but doesn’t want to get too far-ahead of himself, because he knows that it can be gone as quickly as before, casting them back into that sea of change. But the excitement of the new album, which will be the first with this line-up, is clearly etched on his face. His eyebrows raise, eyes widen and a smile creeps to the corners of his mouth as he talks about the possibilities of writing and recording with the four other guys in the room. He and Liner have served as the primary songwriters, and have stacks of unused material that they may work up for the album, but he seems more intrigued with developing new material with the rest of the band and seeing how their sound will evolve. There is some apprehension about putting all five guys in the studio, but their original saxophonist Chris Bentley will help produce the new album and bring some stability to the sessions.
The final night of the Bridge’s summer residency played more like a celebration than a concert. Summer was coming to an end, they had a full slate of shows lined up for the fall, and the Funk Box, which had served the band so well over the past few years, would be changing back to its original name, The 8×10 Club. As they announced from the stage, it was the “Farewell to the Funk.” In keeping with this theme, their set was crammed with songs heavily influenced by the New Orleans funk sound, including a necessary number of tunes by funk gods the Meters, which proved to be a natural fit. The place was packed, and the band brought many of their friends out throughout the night, which culminated with what seemed like half the crowd, many of whom were family, friends and long time fans, on the stage for a huge version of the Meters’ “Hey Pocky Way.” It was appropriate that a band that got its start and gets its support because their friends wanted to hear them would include them on this night in such a personal way.
The final night at the Funk Box closed a chapter on the first part of their career. Drummer Gambone played his first show with the band shortly after, making them a five piece with five permanent members for the first time in a while.
The momentum they built over the summer carried over into the fall and winter as they played shows up and down the East Coast that were consistently raved about. Their Atlantic stint included an opening spot for Umphrey’s McGee and a summer ending headlining spot at Mt. Vernon Park in Baltimore where more than 2,000 people showed up. The individual band members have been in demand as well. Liner has sat in with Particle, Galactic, Umphrey’s McGee and Soulive this past fall. Jacobs was invited to play with legendary funk drummer Russell Batiste, Page McConnell (Phish), Dave Drewitz (Ween) and Gordon Jones (DJ Williams Project) on a brief East Coast tour to help raise money for the New Orleans Musician Benefit. As a sign of their growing recognition and of the strength of their popularity in Baltimore and the surrounding area, they were recently voted Best Band by the Baltimore City Paper, and their most recent album, Cross Street Market was named best album.
Cross Street Market is full of songs that immediately latch onto your brain and leave you humming them all day. Their accessibility has helped them defeat the usual pratfall of so many bands that get lumped into the “jamband” scene—the inability to write good songs. So many bands of this genre instead rely on their live chops to get them through the night. The Bridge, however, have both sides of their brain working for them, the live side and the studio side. They can take an instantly hummable tune from Cross Street Market and turn it into an adventurous beast in a live setting, full of tricky twists and turns.
On a particular hot, sticky, humid Baltimore night in August during the Bridge’s residency, when the band was in the midst of a particularly hot set that saw them weaving in and out of the Grateful Dead’s “Help on the Way” > “Slipknot!” > “Franklin’s Tower,” creating some of those adventurous beasts on stage with their own tunes and making the Dead songs their own, Liner took time out to address the crowd. “We know you had choices tonight, thanks for choosing us.” The tightly packed crowd roared their approval. They had chosen right that night. With The Bridge’s ever-expanding popularity and newfound sense of adventure, those outside of the Baltimore void should start making that choice, too.
