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.