Worlds collide today as Marcus King and Chris Dave announce a series of intimate collaborative shows at Blue Note New York. Set for January 14-19 of next year, the blues-rock guitar hero and jazz percussionist/session superstar will ring in 2025 with a total of 12 engagements at the storied close-quarters club. The new duo will be made a trio by a revolving third seat, which will be held by freak-funk bassist MonoNeon from Jan. 14-16 and vaunted R&B guitarist Isaiah Sharkey from Jan. 17-19. While this match-up seems at first glance to be a sudden lane change, it arrives from a network of connections forged through the years that all four players have spent rising to the top of their fields. The latest and most crucial of these crossings came with King’s third solo studio albumMood Swings, which arrived to widespread acclaim in April. For that release, the rapidly rising guitarist sought to expand his repertoire, reaching beyond his instrumental prowess and rock chops to favor R&B and soul arrangements that centered his powerful–and theretofore underrepresented–vocal abilities. For this new sound, producer Rick Rubin tapped an all-star studio crew, including Dave, who adds drums to nearly every track on the project.
As a figurehead for the new guard of jazz and R&B-fusion, “Daddy” Dave’s rolodex is nothing to scoff at either. The drummer’s circles have widened through work with icons like Kenny Garrett, Robert Glasper, Adele and D’Angelo–whose 2014 Black Messiah project brought Dave’s first collaboration with Sharkey–as well as his own band the Drumhedz, whose recordings MonoNeon regularly stitched bass solos too in the early days of his beloved YouTube channel. Though Dave, Mononeon and Sharkey have all shared a stage in the past, noted jammer King’s contributions to this mix are yet to be heard…