MIAMI HERALD

HOMEGROWN
Posted on Mon, Jun. 26, 2006

For Way of the Groove, music's in the blood
By BRETT O'BOURKE
bobourke@MiamiHerald.com

For a band that didn't really plan on being a band, doesn't really rehearse and whose bassist and drummer (24-year-old twin brothers) have almost no formal training, Way of the Groove is remarkably good.

Though, perhaps it's to be expected that the twins could get thus far on sheer talent: Their father, the mythical Jaco Pastorius, is widely regarded as the most influential electric bass player to have ever walked the Earth.

In the 1970s and '80s, having played with Weather Report and Joni Mitchell, Pastorius revolutionized the way the instrument is played. But by the mid-'80s, bipolar disorder -- exacerbated by drug and alcohol addiction -- had wrecked his marriage and career.

He was semi-homeless, often sleeping in Fort Lauderdale's Holiday Park. In 1987, at just 35 years old, the bassist was beaten to death by Luc Havan, a nightclub manager and martial arts expert. After a plea bargain, Havan only served four months for killing the man guitarist Pat Metheny said was ``the last jazz musician of the 20th century to have made a major impact on the musical world at large.''

Some kids might be a tad reluctant to follow in their father's giant steps -- and on the same instrument nonetheless -- but Felix Pastorius doesn't seem to sweat it.

''Is there pressure being the world's greatest bass player's sons?'' he asks, sitting his lean 6'7'' frame into a chair in the living room of the house he shares with his brother, Julius, and mother, Ingrid. ``Totally. How could you not feel that? But we don't worry about it. We just want to play.''

The band, which consists of Felix, Julius on drums, Adam Lucas on guitar, and Colin James on sax and keyboards, plays just the kind of thick-grooving funk you would expect.

''Original fusion, lots of Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, Blood, Sweat and Tears, [later] Miles Davis and all his children,'' Felix says.

Julius says there have always been instruments around the house (a mild understatement; they are literally hanging on the walls), but he got serious about the drums five years ago, mostly because Felix needed someone to jam with.

Ingrid found James hanging out at one of Felix's gigs, and was impressed with the way he was listening. Lucas -- a Jaco devotee -- found Ingrid, sending her a stack of e-mails until she finally went and saw him play. The guys became friends, jamming together occasionally, before Ingrid asked them to play for a Jaco memorial birthday party in 2001. Lucas, who was playing bass at the time, traded it in for the lead guitar. The band has been together ever since, putting together a retro (but not retread) fusion/funk sound that is begining to get them noticed.

''Those Pastorius brothers are the real deal,'' says Art Edelstein, senior producer for Festival Productions, which puts on the global JVC Jazz Festivals. Edelstein first saw the band at Jazid in Miami Beach during the recent Miami installment of the festival. ``I see a lot of bands, so for them to stand out means a lot. I don't know why no one has signed them to a [record] deal yet.''

But since the band does no promotions, has no press kit (not even the ubiquitous myspace page), and says it has no burning ambitions to rehearse much or record, the idea of a deal seems distant.

Although they are headed to Italy for a festival concert and brief mini-tour in two weeks, the guys say they are just happy ''getting their stuff together,'' playing their weekly Wednesday night gig at Alligator Alley in Fort Lauderdale.

''It's like playing at home without actually playing at home,'' Julius says.

Bands at the Alley play for tips, which typically don't amount to much, but it gives the band a place to work out their grooves.

''Right now we just need to keep playing, get tighter,'' says Felix, displaying the easygoing, it's-all-about-the-music vibe that made his father famous.

The boys were 5 when their father died, but he passed on an enormous amount of talent and a legacy that Way of the Groove is begining to build upon.

''They could reject or embrace it,'' says Ingrid, looking across the room at her sons. ``but these two are following through in the same style and keeping the torch alive.''

B A C K to WOTG website