San Diego Reader

Felipe Benevides: Guitar (acoustic), Guitar (electric), Keyboards, Mandolin | Ron Bocian: Drums, Percussion | Jay Reilly: Bass (acoustic), Bass guitar

Genre: Blues & Soul, Funk, Jazz, Rock

Sound description: Combining elements of jazz, surf, rock, Latin, and second line rhythms, the band calls their sound “Surfy soul jazz.”

RIYL: Link Wray, Professor Longhair, Santana, Mattson2, Budos Band

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Related Links

• Red Fox Tails website

• "There Has Never Been a Better Time: Red Fox Tails" · June 7, 2012

• YouTube

Synoposis

Inception: Oceanside, 2010

Influences: Henry Mancini, Calexico, Bill Frizzell, the Big Lazy, Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, Medeski Martin and Wood

Background:

Formed in 2010, the Red Fox Tails are an Oceanside-based surf soul jazz trio. Drummer Ron Bocian (Euphoria Brass Band) is a native of Chicago and longtime New Orleans resident from the Treme neighborhood. "The essence of jazz is down there," he says. "You can almost taste it."

Post Katrina, the drummer migrated to San Diego and helped co-found a couple of bands: Euphoria Brass, a big traditional NOLA Second Line outfit, and the Red Fox Tails.

Felipe Benavides is a guitar dude raised on Colombian folk tunes, plantain chips, and old Scooby Doo cartoons who cites Grant Green, a modern jazz guitarist from the '60s and '70s, as a major inspiration.
"The way he pokes around for a melody, it's like he's using a divining rod."

Bassist Jay Reilly is one of their Oceanside neighbors. The band is influenced by jazz, funk, surf, rock, groove, Latin, and second line rhythms. Their seven-song Drop In EP was released in 2011, recorded in ex-Paladins bassist Thomas Yearsley's studio.

For their 2012 full-length Aloha, the band set up shop in Bocian's Oceanside house. "For some of the songs, we just turned everything on and let it rip." So would they call their music jazz?

"I don't know, labels are kind of confining," says Bocian of the trio, which embraces improvising. Their web site claims surf-soul-jazz. "Our arrangements are never the same." He says the songwriting is collaborative.

Discography

Video