Strange Arrangement to perform at Bluebird

When someone mentions they have a degree in formal jazz performance, you might not instantly think of the front man of a funk jam band. Until you talk to Joe Hettinga.

Hettinga, and the other members of the group Strange Arrangement, will perform Thursday at the Bluebird Nightclub.

Strange Arrangement has a deep history both musically and personally. Members Jim Conry, Kevin Barry and Joe Hettinga started the band in high school. After a brief break and gaining Steve Sinde as a drummer, the group started making music together again in 2006.

As the group’s keyboardist, Hettinga said this history has forged familial bonds between members and that it allows for more security and openness in the creative process.

“If we get in disagreements, it doesn’t affect the overall outcome,” he said. “We can disagree and come back together to fix it and make it better.”

The band has been likened to Umphrey’s McGee and Phish and said it draws from a variety of musical genres when creating music, including a genre the bands have in common — jazz. 

Conry, Hettinga and Barry attended the School for Music Vocation together in Iowa, and focused their studies on improvisational jazz. Hettinga said the unlikely pairing of the jazz and jam styles is surprisingly compatible.

“Jam music is just as improvisational as jazz. For me, it was natural for our music to turn to what is considered the pinnacle of good musicianship,” he said.

Hettinga honed his skills as a young musician in his hometown of Chicago, playing in jazz clubs Friday and Saturday nights. Michael Hancock, a first-year Ph.D student at IU, went to school with Hettinga and recognized his musical talent.

“We had a composition class together, and I was always in awe of his piano chops and songwriting,” Hancock said.

Hancock said Strange Arrangement’s sound blends folk with funk and other genres and that the members all know their music intellectually as well as viscerally.

“This is definitely a group that I expect to make a pile of new fans at the Bluebird this week. Fortunately, with the band being located in Chicagoland, Bloomington can expect to see them again if they get the warm welcome they deserve,” he said.

Strange Arrangement’s show will highlight its most recent release; the second album entitled “Polygraph.” Hettinga said this record returns to what the first album lacked: improvisation.  

“It was all recorded live. The songwriting integrates more of the pop and jazz funk than the first album,” he said.

But despite the changes in genre that the band’s music may take, Hettinga still goes back to those weekends playing in Chicago and how it got him where he is now.

“I would play thinking that I didn’t know if this is what I wanted to do 10 years from now,” Hettinga said. “I wanted to do more than just play on a Friday or Saturday night. This is so much more than that to me.”