KNEEBODY
Genres: Nu Jazz, Eclectic Fusion, Classic Fusion, RnB • United States

Kneebody is an American band formed in 2001, consisting of Adam Benjamin on keyboards, Shane Endsley on trumpet, Ben Wendel on tenor sax, Kaveh Rastegar on bass, and Nate Wood on drums. They are "a resolutely un-pindownable band" acclaimed for their eclectic style, which "uses a common jazz instrumentation to make a somewhat less common amalgam of urban-signifying genres, from electro-pop to punk-rock to hip-hop. Ben Wendel, Shane Endsley, Adam Benjamin, and Kaveh Rastegar met in the late 1990s as students at the Eastman School of Music. Benjamin later transferred to CalArts, where he met Nate Wood. After graduating Eastman, Wendel and Rastegar moved to Los Angeles, and the band got its start at the Temple Bar and The Vic in Santa Monica, California, where they played a weekly residency. The name of the band was a nonsense word invented by Wendel's girlfriend, so that the band had no clear leader read more...