Funky yet fishy

Vanessa Rodrigues’s Soul Food for Thought
gives you something to chew on

ORGANIC: Vanessa Rodrigues

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

“You know Blinky, the fish from The Simpsons with the three eyes? Well, they pulled a fish with two jaws out of Lake Athabasca, near the tar sands, a few years ago,” say Montrealer Vanessa Rodrigues, funky jazz organist extraordinaire.

“I decided to name that fish Chompy and write a tune for him. It’s kind of a creepy-sounding tune, kinda wonky, weird and edgy. I wanted people to feel a little uncomfortable listening to it. There’s something wrong when you pull out a fish out with two jaws—and apparently somebody ate it too.”

A cartoon of Chompy the two-jawed fish adorns the actual CD of Soul Food for Thought, the second of Rodrigues’s Soul Project albums revitalizing the classic Hammond B3 jazz-funk trio format. It’s “more unified, more cohesive” than the 2005 debut, she says, giving due credit to her collaborators, guitarist Olivier René-de-Cotret, drummer Jean-Pierre Lévesque, DJ Killa Jewel on the turntables and guest MC BluRum13.

“There was more input from the band—including the engineer, Karl de Serres, who had a lot to do with the final sound of it, the fact that it sounds a lot more hip hop and funky, rather than a jazz aesthetic.”

Either way, the album has an agenda, addressing concerns about the food industry. Rodrigues and co. aren’t didactic about such matters, but then, how could they be? Aside from a couple of clever raps from BluRum13, Soul Food for Thought is an instrumental album, so the aim is to get people thinking rather than tell them what to think. “Ode to Monsanto” is a good example.

“People consume their products every day and don’t know who they are or what they do. They’ve got the market cornered on large agricultural production of staple items—corn, soy, they’re getting into wheat. They were a chemical company, they made Agent Orange, DDT, all that stuff, and now they’re making genetically modified food. They’re a very powerful company—and nobody knows their name.”

If some listeners furrow their brows and Google “Monsanto” out of curiosity, Rodrigues will have achieved her goal. “There are no lyrics, but I want people to think about why I chose those titles and why the songs make them uncomfortable. There’s a reason for that.”

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