Souljazz Orchestra is bent on bending genres

The Souljazz Orchestra does not play the sort of music that its name might be taken to suggest - the typically organ-fueled hybrid jazz form made popular in the 1960s - although it did have some early connection to that form.

“I guess that in the beginning we were maybe a little more soul-jazz-oriented, in the really strict sense of the term - Donald Byrd and Grant Green and Jimmy McGriff-type stuff,’’ says Pierre Chrétien, band leader, multi-instrumentalist, and principal songwriter, speaking by phone from his home on a Sunday afternoon. “But we’ve always had different influences. I think everything we do is soulful and jazzy in a general sense, although not always in a very American kind of way. We were doing other stuff right from the start.’’

That “other stuff’’ includes a wild mélange of musical styles and influences - ample amounts of American funk and soul, loads of African strains, Latin elements, and even some reggae here and there - brought to life through a collective that always includes a phalanx of horns, percussion, and keys, variously supplemented by woodwinds, guitars, vibes, and even the occasional harp.

Chrétien shies away from a typical characterization of the band’s music as Afrobeat because of that term’s specific association with the music of Fela Kuti (“That’s over- generalizing, like calling it ‘world music,’ ’’ he argues. “A lot of Western journalists will call anything from the African continent ‘Afrobeat.’ ’’)

Having said that, he doesn’t deny an Afrobeat presence, but he characterizes what the Souljazz Orchestra does as “Afrojazz.’’ “I like the term ‘Afro’ because it’s so general, it just means anything from the African continent.’’