Snarky Puppy is a modern, fusionist embodiment of the age old genre of jazz. A chaotic swath of twelve to nineteen (depending on the recording) musicians form a beautiful cacophony of brass, strings, keys, drums and voice. Obviously, an actual song is the most explicit, straightforward example of jazz you could find. This song, Lingus, does a tremendous job embodying the counterbalance of order and chaos intrinsic to the jazz genre, and life itself.

Midway through the song, every instrumentalist drops off save the drummer, who continues to pound a hefty, syncopated bass drum rhythm. This ostinato continues for the next five minutes, and keyboardist Cory Henry is given unrestrained freedom to improvise on top. The consistent bass drum offers a solid foundation of order on which the chaos of his solo could be presented.

The chaos within his solo is represented by –

(1) continually changing keyboard sounds, swapping between three different physical keyboards

(2) modulation of key and pitch, experimenting with tonal and counter-tonal progressions

(3) alternating techniques and styles, bouncing from smooth legato phrases to sharp staccatos

While it is easy to get temporally and melodically lost in Cory’s psychedelic improvisation, the unchanging rhythm deep underneath provides a source of grounding and reorientation. The chaos without the order would be overwhelming and unintelligible. The order without the chaos would be bland and rudimentary.

The solo and song as a whole offers an overt example of order and chaos harmonizing together to create an emotionally stimulating and intellectually engaging piece of music.