The trombone has apparently become an endangered species. The National Foundation of Youth Music claim that young people are no longer drawn to the instrument, and music teachers have begun yearning for the arrival of a new popular star who can do for the trombone what James Galway did for the flute.
Perhaps these experts should point the kids in the direction of Dennis Rollins. A hard-grooving funk player, Rollins and his band Badbone and Co play to packed clubs full of youngsters. Their music is thrusting and contemporary, alive with crackling electronics, drum loops, awesome bass lines and lead guitar pyrotechnics. In the middle of it all, Rollins's trombone blares out like the cry of a sexual predator on heat: that's right, the trombone can be sexy.
Rollins and Badbone and Co are here to promote their new album Make Your Move. In truth, Rollins's source materials frequently border on the unremarkable: tried-and-tested chord progressions, trusty wah-wah guitar solos, utterly familiar funk rhythms and bluesy riffing. But it is the energy and conviction with which all this is delivered that makes Badbone and Co an almost deliriously good party band. Their grooves sound as precision-tooled as programmed dance music, yet drummer Perry Melius still manages to make it feel human - super-human, in fact. Within minutes of the start of the opening number, the club is a mad house of stomping feet and flying sweat.
Rollins is an ebullient entertainer and, between bursts of arrogant-sounding trombone, he shakes tambourines and beats cowbells like a man possessed. He also wields authority over the audience and his band. "Come down near the front," he yells, and the crowd obey. "Keyboard solo," he barks at Benet McLean, whose fingers began dancing over his piano keys. But it is clear that the real boss tonight is the groove itself, a relentless four-to-the-floor force razing everything in its path. Rollins may not make the most innovative or interesting music in the world, but you'd be hard pressed to find a sharper or more populist exponent of the boring old trombone.
