Snarky Puppy is a musical collective with a rotating roster of musicians that was originally started by bass player Michael League while he was a student at the University of North Texas music department. Its membership has grown up to around 20 individuals at this point, each one highly skilled on their instrument. They make mostly jazz-based instrumental music, usually close to the '70s style fusion, such as Return to Forever. They incorporate a wide array of other genres as well, from funk to hip-hop to gospel, Latin, blues, and various regional traditions. Their pieces almost always sound meticulously arranged and perfectly rendered even when they are mostly improvised. The band sounds highly structured, which sacrifices a little on the feeling of spontaneity and unpredictability, but makes up for it in their performative precision, which, at the end of the day, has been a big part of their success and how they were able to connect with such a broad and diverse audience.
