One New Orleans musical tradition that is in no danger of disappearing in the wake of the flood is the funk jam. The new new wave of funk jam bands, epitomized by Groovesect, makes the pre-2005 new wave sound old school by comparison. Groovesect has sparked a brushfire of dedicated followers based off its dance till dawn live marathons, and if you’ve been living on a diet of techno, vitamin C and X, this probably sounds like the Duke Ellington Orchestra by comparison.

Groovesect is instrumentally solid up and down the line, the arrangements are air tight and swing with a hard funk groove. Onstage, several instrumentalists may be off in their own direction at any point in the proceedings while keyboardist Nick Krawitz pushes the melody relentlessly forward, sideways, and underfoot, and the extra-dimensional rhythm section gravitates from the groove at hand to something that happened fifteen seconds ago or a minute and a half from now.

This approach often works spectacularly well at 4:52 a.m. in the Bon Temps but such magic, like the talking dog that won’t shut up until the money is on the barstool, rarely surfaces in the electrostatic hyperreality of the studio, even with the wonderful interaction between the group, particularly guitarist Danny Abel, and percussionist Alfred “Uganda” Roberts. So while the band’s following will certainly want this souvenir of that big night out, those that haven’t witnessed the thing may have to wait for the live album or get their asses to the Bon Temps.

That said, “Space Dog” is a solid groove that gets the album off on the good foot, “Butter Sauce” features a well-orchestrated Fred Wesley trombone solo and will undoubtedly get plenty of airplay on local stations and college radio, and I really enjoyed Tim Sullivan’s flute solos on “Movin’ On” and “Stash Gap”—just for a moment I had a Herbie Mann Memphis Underground flashback and it felt good.