Funkistice! - The Road‑Born Fusion Experiment (1988)
Written on tour near the end of the 1988 U.S. Army Soldier Show
Funkistice! began as a groove sketched in the barracks during the final leg of the Soldier Show tour. Backstage improvisations and Brian’s immersion in the early music of the Brecker Brothers helped shape its fusion character. Fast, melodic, and rhythmically demanding, the piece became one of the earliest expressions of his emerging jazz-fusion voice and developed into a fully arranged horn feature by the time he returned to Fort Dix.
How Funkistice! Got Its Name
The title came from one of the tour’s less glamorous backstage realities. After several performances in a row, costumes did not always reach the laundry before returning to the rolling wardrobe closet. By the next show, opening its doors could be memorable for all the wrong reasons. Cynthia, one of the show’s singers, took one breath, recoiled, and delivered the verdict: “Oh my god - that’s stinky, that’s rank, that’s funky. That smell is Funkistice!”
Brian was already writing the piece and still searching for a title. Cynthia’s invention was funny, memorable, and unexpectedly apt. The tune was funky, after all - a hard-driving, Brecker Brothers-inspired fusion piece built around an aggressive bass sound, tight horn writing, and demanding ensemble playing. Brian adopted the name immediately. An unlikely backstage moment had given one of his earliest and most ambitious compositions its title.
Brian and fellow Soldier Show performer Cynthia share a hug, a Coke, and a smile during a break from the demanding rehearsal schedule at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in May 1988.
Exhibit I - The Original Road Sketch
During the waning days of the Soldier Show tour, Brian developed the initial groove into a working composition. Between performances, travel days, and backstage rehearsals, he shaped an alto saxophone melody that became the foundation of Funkistice!
Early sketch - the first seed of Funkistice!
Exhibit II — The Actual Sax Part
The horn lines continued to develop on the road. Trumpeter Joe Romano, a fellow Army bandsman from Fort Monmouth and Brian’s closest friend on the tour, became an essential part of that process. Whenever Brian wrote horn lines for future songs, the two played the alto saxophone and trumpet parts together so Brian could hear the harmonies in real time and revise them as needed. For Funkistice!, those informal sessions helped shape the phrasing, dynamics, and rhythmic hits that would define the official Fort Dix recording.
Rewritten alto saxophone part, page 1 - prepared for the Fort Dix studio recording.
Joe Romano playing trumpet during the Fort Dix recording session for Funkistice!, October 1988. His collaboration helped shape the horn arrangements that became a defining feature of the recording.
Exhibit III - The Fort Dix Recording
After the tour, Brian returned to Fort Dix with Funkistice! ready for full studio treatment. Joe Romano recommended drummer Randy Servello of the Fort Monmouth Army Band. After rehearsing the piece with Brian in the Fort Monmouth band hall, Randy joined the recording session and became Brian’s drummer for the rest of his first Army enlistment, collaborating on the remaining Fort Dix recordings through August 1989.
Drummer Randy Servello during the Fort Dix recording session, October 1988.
Randy Servello’s Later Army Career
Randy made Army music his career and later served as a drill sergeant at the Armed Forces School of Music in Norfolk, Virginia. His path provides a fitting coda to the collaboration that began with that Funkistice! session at Fort Dix. Hooah, indeed.
Exhibit IV - The Final Mix and Legacy
The final mix of Funkistice! captures the raw, road-hardened energy of Brian’s earliest fusion writing. Its blend of groove, interlocking horn lines, and improvisational space anticipates the direction he would pursue in the Early Rock Daze material and later on Explorations (1999). The recording preserves a young composer’s emerging voice at the moment when ideas shaped on the road first became a finished studio work.
🎵 The completed Fort Dix mix - the first fully realized recording of Funkistice! (clip)
🎵 Clip from “Funkistice!” – recorded at Fort Dix, 1988
Epilogue - Funkistice 2: The Reprise (December 1988)
A companion piece to Funkistice!, recorded in late December 1988
If Funkistice! captured the road-hardened energy of the Soldier Show tour, Funkistice 2: The Reprise explored the same musical territory from a different angle. Built around a similarly funky, horn-driven foundation, the piece is more restrained and atmospheric than its predecessor. Throughout the arrangement, fragments of the original composition reappear as musical callbacks, with familiar melodic ideas surfacing in altered forms before disappearing again. Although connected by style and thematic references, The Reprise is an entirely separate composition rather than a continuation of the original piece.
Recorded during Xmas week of 1988, the piece carries a playful seasonal undercurrent that becomes unmistakable as the arrangement unravels. What begins as a structured fusion ensemble gradually moves into something far less conventional. Near what appears to be the tune's ending, the sound of a glass shattering abruptly interrupts the performance. From that moment forward, the recording abandons traditional arrangement in favor of open-ended experimentation. Instruments enter the mix one by one, layers accumulate, and the music evolves into a free-form collective improvisation in which each player pursues an independent musical direction.
The result is a dense and increasingly chaotic soundscape that builds toward a near-frenzied conclusion.
The final moments are among the most unusual in Brian's early catalog. A whip crack cuts through the noise, followed by a horse's neigh created by Joe Romano's trumpet. Over the aftermath, Brian delivers a closing line in a deliberately deep and mysterious voice:
"And to all…a good night"
Recorded on the eve of 1989, Funkistice 2: The Reprise stands as an eccentric coda to the Fort Dix sessions: part sequel, part experiment, and part musical prank, bringing the year to a memorable and decidedly unconventional close. With that strange farewell, the Fort Dix sessions of 1988 drew to an end.
🎵 Funkistice 2: The Reprise - Recorded in late December 1988 - press play and let the funky weirdness begin: