Was (Not Was) Bears Out Inclination Toward Greatness at Coach House Concert

Was (Not Was) is (is not) one of the greatest groups of the ‘80s, with a performance Thursday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, showing the group leaning ever closer to the “is” category.

The ungainly infant of record producer Don Fagenson and former jazz critic David Weiss (professionally known as Don and David Was), Was (Not Was) has existed for most of this decade as a loose studio aggregation. On its infrequent, sparkling and quirky albums, the two have combined elements of everything from Philly soul to free jazz to acerbic humor, and employed such diverse talents as Mel Torme, Ozzy Osbourne and Mitch Ryder to voice them.

Along with their assimilative abilities, the two are some mean song-crafters. As delivered by a dynamic and soulful 11-piece band Thursday, the Was Bros. melodies and hooks almost took the roof off the place. It may be that the ceiling survived because the group is still more used to the studio than the stage, but there’s also the matter of brains to contend with.

Rolling Stone this month called Was (Not Was) “America’s smartest rock & roll band.” While “animal vigor” is an attribute in rock, and “genius” does quite nicely, “smart” can be a perilous middle ground where music is rendered clever and contrived rather than compelling. On the group’s lesser material Thursday, one could almost hear the sound of clicking brains at work, when what was called for was a bit more sweat and abandon, more blat and squeal from the horns.

That is not to say that there wasn’t a good deal of sweat and squeal happening on stage. It is only the group’s immediate proximity to greatness that makes the couple of inches it lacks worth mentioning. The rest of that distance was remarkably filled by soulful singing, unexpected twists, hot-house ensemble playing, wild displays of musical chops (such as one horn player’s soloing on trumpet and fluegelhorn simultaneously ) and arrangements that sounded like a get-together of America’s great soul-music cities: Philly, Memphis, Minneapolis and the band’s native Detroit.

It hurt not a bit that the group was fronted by the Was Bros.’ longtime cohorts Sweet Pea Atkinson, an unsung Detroit soul great with a raw husky voice located somewhere between Wilson Pickett and Bobby Womack, and Sir Harry Bowens, the very smooth-throated former O’Jay. While Dave and Don chiefly kept to the background, performing on flute and bass respectively, Atkinson and Bowen usually made the pair’s quirky lyrics seem to come from the heart rather than the cerebrum.

Atkinson gave a throat-rending performance of the Was’ strongest ballad, “Where Did Your Heart Go?,” which also boasted a screaming tenor solo from sax man David McMurray, while Bowens effortlessly did the same for “Anytime Lisa.”

Humor is such a natural part of the band’s music that it didn’t detract from Bowen’s intensity when guitarist Randy Jacobs closed the song with a well-told musical joke. Dropping the taste and reserve which had marked his playing to that point, Jacobs launched into an utterly non-sequiturial guitar solo from hell, rampaging across the stage, doing flips and writhing on the floor while eliciting whammy-bar explosions and scatter-gun riffs from his instrument.

The group also maneuvered smoothly from the jazz-punk “Dad, I’m in Jail”--where Fagenson came forward for a haranguing vocal that could slice years off any father’s life--to the outright tender Philly soul of “Somewhere in America There’s a Street Named After My Dad.”

Topping the band’s eclectic mix was its persuasive dance numbers, where even a sterling cover of “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” took a back seat to the originals “Walk the Dinosaur,” a loopy cross between a Minneapolis rave-up and Traffic’s “Pearly Queen,” the Mitch Ryder-inspired “Bow Wow Wow Wow” and the group’s well-deserved dance hit “Spy in the House of Love.” Anais Nin never had it so good.