As I watched fDeluxe going through their sound check in an empty Jazz Café, they began playing a groove that was taut, lean, and riding on a sinewy bass line. That was when something strange and remarkable happened to me: as I tapped my foot in time with the beat a delicious frisson of excitement rapidly rippled its way up my back and landed at the nape of my neck where it exploding into a wave of orgasmic tingling. Perhaps due to jaded ears, it’s a feeling, I confess, that I experience only too rarely these days when watching musicians perform.

But fDeluxe – aka The Family – have got that special something; qualities in their music that can transform the listener at both a physical and psychological level and which can connect with them emotionally too. There’s definitely a palpable chemistry when they perform. The combination of Susannah Melvoin’s winsome vocals, Paul Peterson’s muscular bass lines, Jellybean Johnson’s searing rock-inflected guitar and saxophonist Eric Leeds’ jazzy, bebop-inflected riffing creates a funk and soul experience that is singular, wonderful and sometimes transcendent. 

Three hours later, the band was on stage to begin its debut UK performance in front of a packed, excited audience comprised mainly of forty-something devotees of anything Prince-related. An audience tends to appreciate a concert more when they see the performers enjoying themselves, and judging from their on-stage spontaneity and warm displays of camaraderie, fDeluxe were having a ball up on stage (the gig also marked the occasion of saxophonist Eric Leeds’ sixtieth birthday, which undoubtedly contributed to the party atmosphere).

FDeluxe began in full-throttle mode with a searing rendition of ‘High Fashion,’ the opener from their collectable Paisley Park debut album (recorded back in the days when they were known as The Family and had Prince Rogers Nelson as a mentor, though he’s since abandoned them). 

Their funk was seriously on the money and you could have been forgiven for thinking that you had been transported back in time to Minneapolis circa 1986. But any notions of nostalgia were soon dispelled by the presence of brand new tracks by the band (which has been expanded to a seven-piece touring unit and includes keyboardist Jason De Laire and guitarist Oliver Leiber in its ranks). And very good they were too, especially the lovely ‘Over The Canyon’ and ‘Lover,’ which spotlighted the lovely Susannah Melvoin – though they were stylistically in keeping with the group’s original sound the new songs didn’t sound dated and had a strong contemporary feel even if sonically they sound like nothing else that’s around right now. 

Called back for an encore, the group turned up the heat and increased the funk quotient with a potent rendition of the propulsive ‘Screams Of Passion,’ which included a few melodic quotations from Sheila E’s ‘A Love Bizarre.’ It ended the night on an exhilarating high. On this evidence, The Family – aka fDeluxe – are back with a vengeance. Their return to the UK can’t happen soon enough. 

(Pictures by Al Stuart)