CRUSADERS BUCK TREND, BLEND MUSIC

The way Joe Sample sees it, the Crusaders’ consistent failure to allow their instrumental music to be categorized has earned them a certain amount of disdain among the music industry establishment.

“Unfortunately, in this country, there’s a lot of prejudice against the various forms of music,” Sample, 46, said from his Los Angeles home. “The jazz people hate the blues, the blues people hate rock, and the rock people hate jazz.

“But how can anyone hate music? We tend to not hate any form of music, so we blend it all together. And consequently, we’re always finding ourselves in big trouble with everybody.”

Throughout their 27-year-history, Sample said, the Crusaders--scheduled to play two shows tonight and Sunday night at Humphrey’s on Shelter Island--have run into “big trouble” with the music press, which has tended to ignore them.

They’ve gotten into big trouble with concert promoters, who frequently gear advertising toward the wrong audience and then blame the group when the shows don’t do well.

And they’ve encountered more big trouble, especially in the last few years, from radio stations all over the country.

“In just the last five years, radio stations have become more formatted than ever before,” the keyboardist said. “And even though we’ve had our share of hits in the past, none of that seems to matter right now.

“Jazz stations won’t play us because we’re not strictly jazz, pop stations won’t play us because we’re not light enough, and so on.

“And I think that’s really unfortunate, because the people--who, in the end, are the only ones who really matter--still love the band.”

Indeed they do. Despite the music establishment’s consistent snubbing of the Crusaders, Sample said, they’ve racked up quite a number of accomplishments that have rightfully earned them a reputation as one of the most popular instrumental bands in the world--among the people.

Throughout the 1970s--”At a time when radio was not so fragmented,” Sample said--the Crusaders scored a handful of hits on the national pop charts, including “Don’t Let It Get You Down” in 1973, “Keep That Same Old Feeling” three years later and “Street Life,” their biggest, in 1979.

In those same years, they graduated from the smoke-filled jazz clubs they had been playing to 20,000-seat arenas normally reserved for big-name rock acts.

And among their fans were some of their most-ballyhooed peers of all musical styles, ranging from the Rolling Stones--who in 1975 invited them along on an English tour--to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom they cut a live album in 1982.

The Crusaders were formed in 1958 by Sample, bassist and saxophonist Wilton Felder, drummer Nesbert (Stix) Hooper, and trombonist Wayne Henderson, all Houston college mates.

All but Henderson had known each other since the early 1950s, when they were members of the same marching band in their native Houston.

They initially played straight jazz, Sample recalled, but after a year of limited success they switched to a more funky style of dance music and backed singers, like Jackie DeShannon.

In 1961, however, they returned to jazz and changed their name to the Jazz Crusaders. A record contract with the World Pacific Jazz label was landed that same year, and for the rest of the 1960s the group experienced a fair amount of success.

In 1969, Sample said, the band’s current direction began: they dropped the “Jazz” prefix from their name and changed their music even more drastically to a blend of funk and dance rhythms punctuated by terse, often shrill instrumental solos.

And despite a steady influx of new members--only Sample and Felder remain today of the originals--the band has continued on that path ever since.

“Now we’ve got the band pretty well set in terms of members,” Sample said. “Terry (Wilson, on drums) has been with us for about nine months, (bassist) Bradley Bobo has been with us a year, and (guitarist) David T. Walker has been playing with us for five years.

“And I’m beginning to notice that the band is starting to sound like it did in the old days--the early 1960s--when we first started to evolve from jazz into our current blend of all styles.

“I’m starting to feel the same energy level we had back then, and I think it’s because we’ve now got some younger players who aren’t bored and tired--they understand that when you play, you have to go for broke, and if you make a mistake and fall down, you have to get up and try again instead of give up.”