A B3 model Hammond organ from 1962, like the type Sam Fribush sets himself up behind, weighs upwards of 310 pounds—and that’s just the console unit alone. Throw the bench and a Leslie speaker in, and you’re easily crossing the 400-pound threshold. When your instrument of choice rivals the usual transportation concerns drummers contend with—their whole painful lives—you’ve really committed yourself.
So when Greensboro, North Carolina, native Fribush joins his drumming partner, Corey Fonville (of Richmond’s Butcher Brown), to headline the Rivanna Roots Concert Series, it’s a safe bet that they’ll be laying down the musical equivalent of, what they called on “The Sopranos” “coming heavy” (see season 1, episode 5, when Uncle Junior tells Tony: “Next time you come, you come heavy or not at all.”). In other words, if you’re rolling riverside with this much musical gear and the performance chops to back up such sonic machines, you don’t plan on messing around.
The duo accomplishes heights of virtuosity in groove-oriented jazz by operating as a trio. In the studio, the result of working with guitarist and pedal steel player Alan Parker yielded 30 tracks of one-take jams that were distilled into What Day Is It (2025), a sometimes trippy, sometimes head nod-inducing bunch of bops that refashion what would otherwise act as a mirror to a retro-minded platform. An organ trio could easily fall back on nostalgia, but this recasting of a vaguely out-of-fashion configuration gets new life in their capable hands.
At this performance, guitar duties will be handled by Charlie Hunter, who has the distinction of playing customized seven- and eight-string models that give his technique a chance to simultaneously pump out bass lines. His singular style should lend another layer to what’s already likely to be an interesting back and forth between the namesakes of the operation
Opening the show before sundown, improvisational Choose Your Own Adventure offers a funk fusion via woodwinds, keys, bass, and drums that should be the right amuse-bouche before the main course.
