Durand Jones & the Indications brings lowrider soul to the Cali Roots stage.

DURAND JONES WAS A GRADUATE STUDENT STUDYING CLASSICAL SAXOPHONE when he first met Aaron Frazer and Blake Rhein, then two undergrads at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music studying audio engineering.

Jones was inspired by Frazer and Rhein to head to his grandmother’s home in his native rural Louisiana and dig through her 45s, where he uncovered a bounty of Gladys Knight & the Pips and other soul tracks – sounds which, when the trio began writing music as Durand Jones & the Indications in 2012, formed their foundation.

A decade later, Durand Jones & the Indications has released three studio albums, a live album and six double-sided 45s. Jones on vocals, Frazer on the drumkit with a silky falsetto on offer and Rhein on guitar remain the principle songwriters, with Brooklyn-based Michael Montgomery on bass and Steve Okonoski on organ and keys. The band’s first two full-length efforts, the self-titled debut from 2016 and 2019’s American Love Call, showed the band’s loyalty to the roster of 1960s and 1970s soul artists who influenced them, such as Curtis Mayfield, Dionne Warwick, Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway.

In a February 2020 interview with North Carolina radio station WNCW, Frazer said the songwriting, while steeped in 1970s soul, also relies on a “post-hip-hop sensibility.” Instead of rapper Nas growing up listening to the Delfonics, the band’s sound imagines if the Delfonics grew up listening to Nas and J-Dilla, the highly influential hip-hop DJ from the 1990s.

This band from the Midwest takes Philadelphia soul and makes cruising music for the lowrider community in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights. Yet, as with many soul artists at the height of their powers, there are layers to the music Durand Jones & the Indications writes.

“There are pillars of soul,” Jones told WNCW radio. “There’s the party, there’s the love song, but there’s also the social consciousness. People like Marvin Gaye… Gil Scott Heron, they were so impactful in that songwriting process and it would be a total disservice to not keep that going. It’s good to sing about love and it’s good to get the people dancing, but we want to keep them socially aware too.”

Durand Jones & the Indications will take the Monterey Fairgrounds stage one day removed from an extensive North American tour. After Cali Roots, the band will open for blues rock artist Gary Clark Jr. at Colorado’s famed Red Rocks Amphitheater and then hit a string of dates supporting singer-songwriter Jack Johnson, before heading overseas for a European tour.

At a festival known for attracting the most popular reggae, dub and hip-hop artists, Durand Jones & the Indications offers a departure from the festival’s traditional sound. Even organizer Dan Sheehan admits that the band is “outside the box” for what one might expect. Still, he says, it will fit right in with the breezy California vibe the festival has staked its reputation on.

DURAND JONES & THE INDICATIONS perform at 1:15pm Sunday, May 29.