Jam Cruise 20 continued on Monday with a day at sea featuring more than 17 hours of live music as the MSC Divina made its way to the journey’s first port stop in Montego Bay, Jamaica, where we’re docked as I write this (I can hear steel drums playing outside my window at the port as I write this. Not a bad way to wake up after a solid 2 hours of sleep.)
Monday’s loaded lineup featured performances by The HillBenders, J & The Causeways, Al Schnier (moe.), Lebo, Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country, Cimafunk, Jerry Harrison & Adrian Belew Remain in Light, John Medeski (solo piano set), Big Richard, Lyle Divinsky, Perpetual Groove, Jimi’s Dead, Eddie Roberts & The Lucky Strokes, Proxima Parada, Medeski Martin & Porter ft. Aba Diop, Lotus, Lettuce, Ryan Montbleau Band, and Franc Moody in addition to a DJ Logic birthday dance party in the Galaxy Disco and a Jam Room led by TAUK Moore’s Isaac Teel and Kanika Moore.
With several scheduled sets running simultaneously from noon on Monday through after 5:00 a.m. Tuesday morning—and even more “unofficial” music still going when I finally called it after 8:00 a.m.—it was impossible to catch all the music played on the ship on day two. Below are just a few of the most memorable moments from the second day of Jam Cruise 20. Follow Live For Live Music on Instagram for more video content all week long.
Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country Plays The Weather On The Pool Deck
While guitarist Daniel Donato has already been making an impression on the Jam Cruise crowd for some time (he played last year’s edition with Trouble No More and as a solo performer, then sat in with moe. on this year’s opening night), Monday afternoon marked his first Jam Cruise performance with his touring band, Cosmic Country. Following easy-going early-afternoon sets by The HillBenders, moe.’s Al Schnier, J & The Causeways, and Lebo, Donato and Cosmic Country hit the Pool Deck for one of the day’s most energetic performances.
The band’s white-and-grey dress code seemed to match the thick layer of clouds that covered the sky as the set began, though an orange glow on the horizon line hinted at hope for some afternoon sun. The band matched the rabid energy of the crowd throughout the performance as Donato, Will “Mustang” McGee (upright bass, electric bass), Nate “Sugar Leg” Aronowitz (keys), and Will Clark (drums) treated the line between country sensibility and cosmic improvisation like a slalom course, picking up momentum all the while.
“We’re all here on the same wavelength,” Donato said of the happily sequestered Jam Cruise ambiance. “We’re all here together. It’s so beautiful.” As Donato led the band into an ethereal take on Irvin Berlin classic “Blue Skies”, the clouds above the Pool Deck began to part, revealing the crystal blue sky behind them. Guess we just had to ask.
Adrian Belew & Jerry Harrison Talk To Heads, Play Talking Heads
Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew, Jam Cruise 20’s resident rock legends, had a busy day on Monday. In the afternoon, they participated in a live JAMTalks discussion moderated by Relix associate editor Hana Gustafson and spent time answering questions from fans, many of which led to interesting and amusing anecdotes from their decades in the business.
A favorite: In response to a question about his session work with Nine Inch Nails, Belew explained that he often didn’t know what a given song he worked on would actually sound like until it came out. When the graphic hit “Closer to God” came out, he said he heard his kids listening to it (“I wanna f— you like an animal” set off his Dad senses) and tried to tell them they shouldn’t listen to music like that. “But Dad,” they said, “you’re on this track.”
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Later that night, Belew and Harrison joined up with their touring backing band/Jam Cruise regulars Cool Cool Cool for a phenomenal performance in the Pantheon Theater that paid homage to Talking Heads tours of the ’80s. As they played, it was hard not to think back to past memorable Jam Cruise moments—like the time Turkuaz covered P-Funk’s Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome in its entirety in the same room on Jam Cruise 18 with a raft of notable guests. While plenty has changed for these musicians since then, Monday’s Remain In Light set felt strangely nostalgic. The chameleons of Cool Cool Cool can still embody an iconic songbook like few others—same as it ever was.
Jerry Harrison & Adrian Belew Remain In Light (ft. Cool Cool Cool) – “Crosseyed & Painless” (Talking Heads) [Pro-Shot]
Cimafunk Makes Jam Cruise Debut In Cuban Waters
Are you ready for some funky party? As the Divina passed through Cuban waters, Cuban/Afro-Caribbean funk sensation Cimafunk and his namesake band took to the Pool Deck for their boat debut and left many Jam Cruisers raving about their new favorite band for the rest of the night. Cima’s ensemble is packed with versatile, consummate performers—the vocal/horn section of Hilaria Cacao (trombone, backing vocals) and Katy Cacao (saxophone, backing vocals) in particular—but it was hard to take your eyes off the frontman as he played the band like an instrument, threw down eye-popping dance moves, and howled like his soul was possessed with the funk. Did the late James Brown reincarnate in Cuba as Cimafunk? Sure, you can’t prove it, but you can’t convince me it’s not true, either.
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Lyle Divinsky Turns The Atrium Into The Living Room
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Jam Cruise it’s that the best things happen in the Atrium. While bands like Lotus handled the high-intensity crowd in the theater, Lyle Divinsky reaffirmed that cardinal rule on Monday night with a laid-back singer-songwriter set that showed off both his own growing catalog and his many talented friends.
With the Atrium’s makeshift stage arranged so that the musicians faced each other in a circle—to mimic the atmosphere of a living room jam, Divinsky explained—the performance put the spotlight on voices and vibes over technical prowess and improvisation. Revolving guests featured throughout the set included Joe Tatton (The New Mastersounds) Cris Jacobs, Isaac Teel (TAUK), Adryon de León, Shira Elias (Cool Cool Cool), Sammi Garett (Cool Cool Cool), Ryan Montbleau, Tuck Ryan, and Lebo.
The Montbleau appearance in particular was a standout moment of the entire night. As Divinsky explained, too often when songwriters get together to play, they end up playing covers. Instead, he wanted to celebrate his peer by “covering” one of his songs with him. With that, Lyle started into Montbleau’s beautiful “Our Own Place”, taking the first verse himself before sitting back with his hands in his lap and a grin beaming from his face as he watched Ryan do his thing with the rest of us.
To cap off the show, Divinsky led all his guests—and every voice in the gathered Jam Cruise choir—for a hair-raising rendition of Boyz II Men‘s “End of the Road”.
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Lettuce Goes Psychedelic, Plays Dead
Lettuce‘s superpower is its ability to sound like a different band every time they take the stage. While the group’s sail-away set on day one embodied the “funk” space in a classic sense, Monday’s late-night set in the Pantheon Theater took a hard left turn into futuristic, bass-heavy, dancehall psychedelia as familiar faces like Tycoon and Nikki Glaspie (The Nth Power) filtered in and out on percussion. That all built up to an appropriately thrilling psychedelic climax: A future-funk reimagining of the Grateful Dead‘s “West L.A. Fadeaway” featuring bassist Erick “Jesus” Coomes on the Garcia vocals as old Dead lot footage and stylized liquid light visuals swirled together on the screen behind them.
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Franc Moody’s Jam Cruise Debut
Things I learned about English act Franc Moody late on Monday night on the Pool Deck:
1. Franc Moody is a four-piece band, not a person.
2. None of the four people in the band are named Franc Moody.
3. A 2:15 a.m. Franc Moody set on the top deck of a cruise ship might be one of the most fun dance parties a human being can attend.
The Isaac Teel/Kanika Moore Jam Room Perpetually Grooves (Until 5 a.m.)
Monday night’s Jam Room was hosted by multi-talented TAUK drummer Isaac Teel and powerhouse vocalist Kanika Moore, so TAUK Moore became the de facto house band for the late-night session. But this is the Jam Room, so the lineup never stays the same for long.
When I arrived at 4:45 a.m., Brock Butler and other members of Perpetual Groove, who had played a set on the Pool Deck earlier in the evening, were at the helm for a cover of Prince‘s “I Would Die 4 U”. After bringing the main band back to the stage, Teel kicked off a sing-along slide through Rick James‘ “Mary Jane” that saw Tony Hall, Adam Deitch, Deven Trusclair, and more rotate in for their last licks of the night as the clock pushed past 5:00 a.m.
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Revisit highlights from the rest of Jam Cruise 20 here: Day 1 | Day 3 | Days 4 & 5.