Dave Mattock: Knucklebox

Dave Mattock has spent more than two decades quietly building one of Philadelphia's most reliable musical reputations—teaching at Temple, gigging at Ortlieb's, holding down residencies, and releasing records on his own terms. Knucklebox is his fifth album and second with the organ trio Funktap. The title, Mattock has explained, refers to the musical and technical puzzles embedded in the compositions. Fair warning: some of these puzzles do not come with an answer key.

Funktap features Mattock on Hammond organ, Rhodes, and clavinet alongside guitarist Jason Herrmann and drummer Josh Orlando. This trio has spent years road-testing this material at Philadelphia haunts. That rehearsal time shows. The band moves as a single organism, pivoting from bebop-inflected lines into deep funk grooves without breaking a sweat. Chemistry like this is not manufactured in a studio. It is earned.

The set kicks off with the sprightly title track, launched by the leader's taut chord progressions and Orlando's spicy funk-rock groove. Herrmann layers in more sonic texture with his multifaceted voicings amid Mattock's groove-laden electric piano parts. The compositions are complex enough to reward repeated listening yet grounded enough in groove that they never drift into academic self-indulgence. For example, "JRO" is steeped in jazz fusion movements, enamored with the guitarist's distortion techniques and fiery solo.

"Just the 214 of Us" starts with the soloists' intricate unison choruses and linear storylines. "Bar Fight" is loose, tight, and combustible —tumultuous enough to make you want to find a barstool and grip it tight. Herrmann's guitar work throughout the record is consistently sharp and complementary, never overreaching, which in a jazz trio setting is genuinely half the battle. Orlando keeps time like a metronome that also has opinions, locking the rhythm section into a pocket that rarely loosens its grip. That said, the album does suffer a bit from a lack of truly memorable melodic primary themes.

Mattock is a product of Temple University's jazz program and holds a master's degree from Rutgers—credentials that inform but never smother his playing. Knucklebox is the work of a musician who has done the homework, passed every exam, and knows exactly when to put the books down and just play.