Welcome back to Shecky's Jam Bands. I'm your host Shecky, and I want to start out today's episode asking you a question. A very important question. Have you ever wanted something so badly that you just showed up uninvited and asked for a chance? No appointment, no connection, no guarantee. Just you and your instrument and the audacity to walk through the door and say, hey, would
you let us play? Because that is exactly how today's band got their name, and honestly, it tells you everything you need to know about them. Today we're talking about Lettuce, the greatest funk band working right now, one of the most gifted collections of musicians ever assembled under one name, and a group whose story starts in probably but perfectly in the basement dorms of one of the most prestigious music schools
in the world. The year 1992, The place is Boston, Massachusetts, and specifically the campus of Berklee College of Music, where a group of 16 -year -olds have arrived for a five -week summer performance program. These aren't casual hobbyist teenagers. These are kids who already eat, sleep, and breathe music. They've come from different cities, different backgrounds, but the moment they start jamming together in those dorm rooms,
something clicks. Immediately, undeniably. Drummer Adam Deutsch, guitarist Adam Smirnoff, who everyone calls Schminz, bassist Eric Coombs, and saxophonist Ryan Zoides are among the first cohort. They bond over the same records, James Brown, Earth, Wind & Fire, Tower of Power, The Meters. These are their people. This is their language saxophonist
Ryan Zoides has described. what happened in those first jam sessions as an unexplainable, undeniable connection, a feeling so strong that every one of them spent the next two years staying in touch, waiting for the moment they can do it again. That moment came in the fall of 1994 when the group reconvened at Berkeley as full -time undergrads. Now they had a campus time and a mission, as Deitch put it, They entered freshman year like a gang with a mission to funk. But here's where
the story gets truly great. See, they were Berklee misfits in the best possible way. Not jazzy enough for the straight ahead jazz crowd at Berklee. Not heavy enough for metal kids. They existed in this glorious funk middle space that didn't have a home on campus. So they went looking for one off campus. They found it around the corner from Berkeley on the south end of Boston at a place called Wally's Cafe. Wally's is a legendary jazz club founded in 1947 by a guy named Joseph
Wally Walcott. In a tiny room where the jazz is serious, the musicians are exceptional, and every Tuesday night the best players in the city show up to cut their teeth. Guitarist Schminz has called it the school of Wally's Jazz Cafe, and said they all are, in a very real sense, Wally's stepchildren. Now here's the moment they gave birth to everything. These young Berklee kids kept showing up at Wally's, at other people's
gigs, with their instruments. And they would approach the musicians on the stage and say, hey, would you let us play your stuff? Would you let us sit in on your gig? Night after night, Let Us Play, Let Us Play, Let Us Play. And gradually, the musicians around Boston started calling them the Let Us Band, which became Let Us. Schminz has said they never thought the name would stick, but here's the thing. Once enough people know you by name, it stops being a name and starts
being your identity. And Let Us became an identity. The group graduated from Berkeley in 1998, and nearly every current member is a 1998 graduate. They moved to New York City, which was and is the center of everything in this world, and that's where the real story begins. January 2001, Lettuce has just landed a four -week Wednesday night residency at Wetlands Preserve in New York City. Now, if you don't know about Wetlands, and if you're a fan of this podcast, you really should.
Wetlands was the venue in New York for the jams and funk scene in the 1990s and early 2000s. Fish played there, blues travelers played there, the disco biscuits, government mule. It was a sacred room, intimate, sweaty, loud, and exactly the kind of place where great music was made. Lettuce gets four Wednesdays and they are not treating those like regular gigs. Each week,
They're bringing a different special guest. The format is lettuce plays, a funk or jazz legend walks in, and then the whole thing gets unhinged in the best possible way. The first week, turntablist DJ Logic sits in. Week two, another extraordinary guest, but it's week three that changes everything. January 17th, 2001, Fred Wesley walks in. Fred Wesley, if that name doesn't make your hair on your arms stand up, let me put it in context.
Fred Wesley was James Brown's trombonist. The James Brown, the godfather of soul, the hardest working man in the show business. Fred Wesley played on some of the most important funk recordings in history. Get up, get into it, get involved, make it funky, doing it till death. Fred Wesley is the trombone sound. of classic funk. He is living history. And on a Wednesday night in New York City, he walks into the wetlands and plays with a bunch of 20 -something kids from Berkeley.
He's on trombone and vocals. He tears the room apart. Fans who have listened to the archive recording of that night, which is available on Internet Archive, describe it as one of the most extraordinary live funk documents of that era. But here's the part of the story that becomes a complete circle. Another guest that January residency is jazz guitar icon John Scofield. Sco comes in, sits with the band, and watches
Adam Deitch play drums. And something happens in Scofield's head that he later described as in an interview. He said, I heard Adam and I said, that is it. This guy's got what I'm looking for. Scofield had been searching for a drummer for a new project. He found one at Lettuce Wednesday night at Wetlands. Deech went on to tour and record with Schofield for years, appearing on the legendary Uber Jam album in 2002 and Up All
Night in 2003. And Schofield appeared on Lettuce's debut album, Outta Here, released the same year. Two careers permanently intertwined, all because Lettuce showed up at the Wetlands every Wednesday night and played their hearts out. That is the Lettuce story. Show up, play your absolute best, let the music do the rest. For this episode, I'm picking one song and I'm going with Phyllis from the 2015 album Crush. Crush went number
one in the US Jazz Albums chart. Phyllis is a song on that album that fans describe as the most transportive song I've ever heard. That is a serious claim, but I believe it. Drummer Adam Deutsch describe Phyllis as capturing a chill hop vibe that's flip side of all the powerful up -tempo funk people might expect from us. That contrast is key. Lettuce at full funk velocity is already something to behold. But Lettuce slowing it down, getting atmospheric and hypnotic, that's
a very different power entirely. Phyllis is your entry point. Find the studio version first, then find the live version. Anyone will do. And pay attention to that moment when the whole band lifts off together. That moment is what Lettuce is all about. A couple of quick hits before we close. Things about Lettuce that you might genuinely surprise you. Their former keyboardist wrote Uptown Funk. Jeff Besker played keyboards with Lettuce in those early wetland years before departing
to pursue production. He went on to win the Grammy for the Producer of the Year in 2016 for his work with Mark Ronson, including co -writing Uptown Funk with Bruno Mars. He has production credits across records by Jay -Z, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Eminem, Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry, and Rihanna. The man will play keyboards with lettuce at Wally's Cafe, became one of the most successful music producers of the 21st century. They launched a Berklee Scholarship in 2025.
Lettuce partnered with non -profit Music is a Language to fund a full tuition scholarship for a student to attend Berklee College of Music. The very school where the band was born, they committed one dollar for every ticket sold to fund it. Bassist Eric Coombs said it best. When we each as high school students decided to enroll, our lives were unknowingly course corrected into an ensemble of true music championship. They went back and made sure someone else gets the
same chance. Here's what strikes me most about Lettuce after all the years of listening to them. They started with nothing but a question. Would you let us play? That was it. No label, no booking agent, no social media. just instruments, nerve, and the belief that if they played well enough, long enough, and with enough heart, people would notice. And they were right. Fred Wesley noticed, John Schofield noticed, the jazz community noticed, funk fans noticed, hip hop heads noticed, symphony
audiences noticed. Over 30 years, the circle of people who have noticed keeps getting wider. And through it all, lettuce has never chased a trend. never tried to be something they weren't, just pure, deep, honest funk, built note by note, gig by gig, since 16 years old. They were cramming into a dorm room at Berkeley and asking each other, man, can you feel that? Do you feel that just now? They still feel it, and if you let
them, they'll make you feel it too. That's Lettuce, and that's Shecky's Jam Bands for this episode. Thank you for being here. Go listen to Phyllis. Go find the Wetlands recording. And if there's a lettuce show anywhere near you, go. Don't think about it. Just go. Thanks again for signing in to Shecky's Jam Bands. And if you like us, please rate the show and also leave a review. And if you'd like, email me at sheckysjambands at gmail .com. That's s -c -h -e -c -k -y -s -j -a -m
-b -a -n -d at gmail .com with any suggestions on jam bands that you'd like to hear. I have a whole list for the rest of this year each week but I'm happy to interject and change and be flexible to add your suggestions. Thank you very much and we'll see you soon.