Mr. Patterson’s Hat is the sound of a band packing its lunch pail and going to work. It’s not showy, and it was only on the third listen that I heard a solo that reminded me June Yamagishi was playing guitar. John Gros probably doesn’t call his own number as often as he ought to, so the pieces focus on the band as one of the tightest funk ensembles in town.

 

Lyrically, Gros has a knack for making common language fit with a subtle intelligence, such as in “John Brown,” when he sings, “Everybody knows him ’cause he just keeps hanging ’round / Everybody and his grandma knows John Brown.” It sounds spoken, but try to fit spoken language to music and see how hard it is. Similarly, try to capture a guy’s relationship to the world in 14 words before you sniff at the simplicity of those lines.

 

Songs are necessary evils in funk, though. You suffer if you don’t have good ones, but they’re not what people come for. It’s the rhythm, and the fast, funky, shuffling Indian groove in “Tootie Montana” comes out of nowhere on the album. The instrumental “Go!” is the winner, though. As the name hints, it’s a loping, cowbell-driven instrumental that echoes Washington, D.C.’s go-go funk. It’s a beat you don’t hear around town enough, and “Go!” one of the few instances on the album where the band’s live alchemy kicks in. Yamagishi’s gnarled solo sounds fresh and completely unexpected after Jason Mingledorff’s sax solo. In the solos, the texture of the tune changes completely, letting the song seem to drift organically away from the head arrangement. Gros takes an unusually melodic solo before the tune returns to the head as if they’d been playing it all along.

 

The album’s lone weakness is the melodies that define the instrumentals. They’re rarely memorable and they don’t suggest a song’s attitude or mood; they’re just connected notes. They give the solos direction and they’re rhythmically interesting, and in funk, that’s probably paramount. Still, strong tunes are our friends.

 

Papa Grows Funk plays Jazz Fest Saturday, May 6 at 12:40 p.m. on the Gentilly Stage.