Incognito’s Passion Is Conspicuous

Incognito has been labeled as everything from pop band to Latin jazz ensemble, from ‘70s-styled funk crew to an acid-jazz collaboration for the ‘90s.

But the group, which appears tonight at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, is best defined in terms of its leader, guitarist-vocalist-composer Jean Paul (Bluey) Maunick. Over the course of the ensemble’s 16-year history and its five albums, Bluey, as he prefers to be known, has explored his own musical passions, passions that embrace all those categories.

Based on groove rhythms, Bluey’s music has been in constant flux, encompassing a variety of forms anchored all the while by his original inspirations: Herbie Hancock, Earth, Wind & Fire and especially Stevie Wonder.

Incognito’s latest album, “100 and Rising” (to be released later this week) casts the widest net yet. With heavy emphasis on vocals and less of a jazz feel (the brass section remains but horn solos are mostly missing), the disc aims to score commercial success, Bluey said, without losing track of the group’s personality.

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“The whole thing was I wanted to make the listener take a journey,” Bluey said on the phone recently from a Phoenix radio station between interview takes. “I want to paint a picture, make it so you can create your own video in your imagination, like what happened to me when I listened to the great [Stevie Wonder album] ‘Innervisions’ or Marvin Gaye or Roberta Flack when I was young. I felt like they were taking me on a sensual journey.”

That desire to impart sensuality in his music, he said, is what led his use of a string section on “100 and Rising.” Strings frame the opening number “Where Did We Go Wrong” and climb through the closing number “Jacob’s Ladder.”

“Listening to classical music, like Stravinsky, got me into a physical journey,” Bluey said. “So I added the strings to gain that sensuality and a feeling of timelessness.”

Though there will be no strings in the 13-piece ensemble that appears at the Galaxy, it doesn’t matter. It’s not the strings that define the Incognito sound. It’s the beat, lyrics and variety of musical influences that combine to paint the picture. Add to the formula the fact that Bluey likes to revolve musicians and singers through the group, and you’ve got a group whose very nature is based on change.

“I’m like a musical vampire,” Bluey said. “I need the fresh blood to give me that musical life source, the feeding source, to inject into my new ideas.”

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Bluey was born on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar and has lived in north London since he was 10. Bluey, 38, says he was an “open music head” as he came of age.

“I dug Roberta Flack and Chaka Khan, but I equally dug Joni Mitchell. When you grow up in a society where music wasn’t pigeonholed, you have an advantage. It was all just music in those days.”

That category-less ideal has driven his work since Incognito was formed in 1979. “It’s not that we’re trying to capture all the flavors” of his varied influences, “but to show our experiences.”

Those experiences also provide the basis for his lyrics. “We could just write things off the top of our head,” he explained, “but the more we experience, the more we put down on paper, the more eloquent we become.”

The title tune from the new album is a good example. Its socially conscious lyric, depicting urban street life, was inspired by a trip Bluey made to New York City.

“I was in a Times Square hotel room, and I woke up in the morning and the first thing I heard on the television was ‘It’s going to climb up above 100 degrees today so let’s stay cool out there.’ I went out during the day and spoke to pimps, prostitutes and junkies.

“There was a guy with no legs who lived on this corner that I spoke to and he’d become this great observer, totally absorbed in the scene there,” he said. “He told me how he’d watched this boy grow up on the streets and become a pusher. So I put all of that in the song.

“That’s my way of doing things. . . . It’s not living if you don’t go out and dig what’s around you,” he said. “You may as well be blind.”

In addition to his work with Incognito, Bluey has gained a reputation as a producer, having worked with such musicians as MC Solar and Ramsey Lewis. He just finished work on guitarist George Benson’s next album, a job, he said, that was a dream come true.

“If someone had told me 15 years ago that I’d be working with people like George and my hero [record producer] Tommy LiPuma, why. . . . It’s like getting a call from God.”

* Incognito plays tonight at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, 8 p.m. $17.50. (714) 957-0600.