LabRats: Groove Experiments and the Mwandishi Connection

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LabRats didn't aim to fit neatly on a shelf. The Sacramento-based collective, led by drummer and bandleader Jacob Swedlow, moves wherever the groove takes them—through jazz fusion, hip-hop, and live improvisation—while maintaining a tight, communal vibe both on stage and in the studio.

"LabRats was an idea I had about two years before I found the right people to help me recreate the sound in my head," drummer and bandleader Jacob Swedlow says. "It was formed right in the thick of the pandemic... We just improvised for hours and hours on end without stopping. That way, we could discover our strengths... and then write originals and arrangements based on that."

That open-door process—try it, break it apart, rebuild it—shapes the Sacramento group's identity. Even their name comes from that spirit. "We're all big hip-hop heads and jazz nerds... rehearsing in this dirty practice room, in my garage," Swedlow laughs. "So, it was a bunch of lab rats in the lab type of thing." The band's range was showcased in the Backstage Bay Area podcast through two music examples—"Jef Costello Shot a Man" and "Loading Screen"—selected to demonstrate LabRats' spectrum from head-nod hip-hop to experimental fusion. They won't be on the set lists for the upcoming SFJAZZ shows, but they provide insight into how the group thinks. "Jef Costello" grew from LabRats' love of the film Le Samouraï: "We like using heavy metaphors in our stories to make them more relatable to issues like mental health, love, and loss," Swedlow explains. The track, he adds, deals with "a really tough decision... and the mental-health turmoil that can come with that," told from the perspective of the title character and a witness.

"Loading Screen," by contrast, started as a studio surprise. "We had about an hour and a half left of our session... Miguel [Resendez] had this bass line, and then we just went back to our roots a bit, improvised together for a while," Swedlow says. "After we finished, we just listened to it and we [said], 'All right, here's a vibraphone solo... saxophone here, guitar there.'" The band's knack, he notes, is "imagining what can go on top of" a live take—keeping the spontaneity while shaping it into a song.

At the heart of that flexibility is a philosophy that refuses to separate genres. "We don't see a difference between all these types of music we play," Swedlow says. "We're very aware of the fact that we play Black American music... and try to honor and respect the groundwork that has been laid for us... There's just no difference with us. We approach everything the same way."

The approach was sharpened in school and on the road. Swedlow studied at Oberlin Conservatory, learning directly from drummer Billy Hart and trumpeter Eddie Henderson—both key figures in Herbie Hancock's groundbreaking Mwandishi band. "I developed my skills as a writer and bandleader there," he says, and he still calls Hart for perspective. That lineage is one reason LabRats feel a close connection to the Mwandishi era.

There's also a Bay Area thread. Hancock recorded Mwandishi in San Francisco at the former Wally Heider Recording Studios, just a short hop from today's SFJAZZ Center. The album's reputation—as a deep exploration of spiritual jazz where groove, freedom, and electronics merge—makes it a fitting canvas for LabRats' laboratory mindset. As Hancock has often recalled from his childhood, he couldn't resist taking a screwdriver to clocks, watches, even model trains to see how they worked and what potential they might hold. LabRats' modern experiments feel like a contemporary echo: isolate the parts, test their limits, and rebuild the machine for tonight's room.

Their SFJAZZ program focuses on the Mwandishi language, including the hypnotic "Ostinato (Suite for Angela)." Swedlow becomes animated when describing the piece: "You can count 15 beats over the cycle... so 15/8... already implies a challenge. You have to approach the music without muscle memory," he says. One lesson with Hart stays with him: the drummer once imagined playing Herbie's "One Finger Snap" in 15/8—the same meter that drives "Ostinato"—a reminder that counting is just a doorway to invention. LabRats, Swedlow says, will "model how a classic Mwandishi show would go—lots of free improvisation, lots of auxiliary percussion... We're not trying to copy it exactly, but we're aiming to honor it through what we do."

If you're expecting to hear LabRats originals at these SFJAZZ sets, expect only a few nods. "We're actually going to mix very little of our own music into the show," Swedlow says, adding there will be "little Easter eggs" from other parts of Herbie's catalog. "Go see the show... The two sets will feel different only because there's so much free improvisation... the vibe can change on a dime."

Swedlow's drummer-as-director mindset keeps those changes coherent. "There's really a lot of work and practice that goes into something that sounds completely free," he says. The goal is a balance between expression and function: "You have to express yourself artistically, but you can't leave out the essential parts—the professionalism... playing something in a way where someone else can also artistically speak over that." In other words, the rhythm section isn't a cage; it's a runway.

One more principle guides the band: the audience matters. Quoting pianist Vijay Iyer, Swedlow says he's "always listening to the audience," calling the crowd the most overlooked member of any ensemble. "Your music needs to be a selfless thing," he adds. That ethic is especially relevant in the Joe Henderson Lab, an intimate 100-seat room where you can feel the smallest choices—how a hi-hat tightens, how a synth filter opens, how a trumpet delay blooms into a countermelody. "We play differently when we're performing in front of a huge music festival, and then when we're playing at the Joe Henderson Lab... it's just a requirement. It's the selfless thing to do."

The lab is open.

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