They roll out jazzy, bluesy and funky melodies on a base of Afro-Caribbean beats. Recent inductee Josh Schmidt, who played his first gig with the band at a jam-packed Nomad late last December, has enhanced the funk elements with keyboards. The rest of their repertoire includes lesser-known compositions from Lee Morgan, Dave Holland and Sun Ra. Establishing order in such a large cast has proven no easy task. Every member is involved in other professional or academic projects, so practice time is scarce.
Good musicianship makes up for what they lack in organization.
The band grew out of the Clams, a unique jazz-blues band locally popular in the early '90s. Four of the six original Clams are part of Clamnation, cultivating all the strengths of the previous band but with more mature energy. And more recently, out of Clamnation has grown the Clamnation Large Ensemble, a 17-piece brainchild of trombonist Day that is largely influenced by the Mingus Big Band. Organizing the large ensemble is exponentially more difficult, and as a result they rarely perform, though the concept gets a lot of attention from musicians who want to participate. Even after seven years of working a cornered market, Clamnation remains a bit obscure, mainly because commercial success isn't what they strive for.