Ladies and gentlemen, The Intrinsics: A parental kvell

The young man with the knowing smile above — and trust me, he already knows much more than me about a growing pile of stuff  — is my son, Ethan. He plays piano and keyboards. His professional debut was at Sidney’s Lounge on St. Bernard Avenue in New Orleans, where the estimable Kermit Ruffins, tending bar that night, made him sit and play four songs on the battered upright. He nervously gave up two Fess standards and some Fats Domino. He was fourteen. Somewhere on the internet, if you google Ethan Simon, you’ll find an audition video of him playing bop for admission to an summer jazz camp. He goes to work on Kern’s “All The Things You Are” and Charlie Parker’s “Now Is The Time.” He was seventeen then.

He’s now just shy of his twenty-first birthday, and his band, The Intrinsics, of Cambridge, Mass. and whatever parts of greater Boston require the services of a Memphis-style soul outfit, has just dropped its first recordings.

For those doing the math, this means that apart from all the fixed and certain father-son pride that ordinarily prevails, I have had the additional pleasure, the lagniappe if you will, of watching my kid grow as a musician for nearly a decade. Those who know my overbearing love of American music will hear no hyperbole when I say that I couldn’t be more proud if this kid rolled into Yale Law or an internship at Goldman Sachs. Actually, if you really know me, you’ll understand that I am having trouble conjuring alternate post-graduation paths of glory, as the ones I just mentioned would vaguely shame much of my left-leaning family tree. I don’t know if music will be the life he chooses; I do know that making people dance is always rightful endeavor. In these times, especially so.

Anyway, the first two tracks below are composed by Mr. Simon and Rachel Horn, the alumna with whom he carefully retooled a Motown-heavy campus band into grittier, horn-heavy R&B outfit. Following those tracks are a workup of the ballad “Killing Me Softly,” and the Irma Thomas classic, “Wish Someone Would Care.”

I’m going to expend one more paragraph to thank three fellows who, in the following order, got hold of my son when he was flaming out on a diet of Mozart and Chopin and ready, at age twelve, to chuck the piano for the guitar, or girls, or video games or whatever. Davis Rogan, thank you for teaching him the New Orleans rolls of Fess and Fats. Lafayette Gilchrist, thank you for so carefully mentoring him in jazz improvisation and composition. And Tom McDermott, thank you for showing him that of which a left hand is capable, and, more important, just how much precision and dedication there is to the entire musical journey. But mostly, congrats, Ethan. If your grade-point average skims anywhere above a 3.0, I’ll know you guys aren’t rehearsing enough.

The rest of The Intrinsics:

NADIA URREA      VOCALS.

JEREMY SABATH       VOCALS+TROMBONE.

TREE PALMEDO      TRUMPET

BEN SOBEL       TENOR SAX

JOHN BASS TOURNAS      BARI+ALTO SAX

ALEX GRAFF       GUITAR

JORDAN LAGANA         BASS

MAX SEISS        AUX PERCUSSION

MATT GOLD        DRUMS

And if you need a professional R&B outfit for an event anywhere near Boston, visit the website where these tunes are also embedded, along with their performing schedule and other info:  www.intrinsicsband.com.   And once there, as Eddie Floyd so aptly put it, if there’s something you need, just raise your hand.

Off The Record (Music and Lyrics by Ethan Simon and Rachel Horn)

Shoulda Known Better  (Music and Lyrics by Ethan Simon and Rachel Horn)

Killing Me Softly   (Written by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel)

I Wish Someone Would Care   (Written by Irma Thomas)