Bay Area band Tower of Power swinging into Lexington with big, brassy jazz sound

Having been in the engine room for much of the 55-year tenure of Tower of Power, one might be surprised to hear drummer David Garibaldi describe the veteran Oakland ensemble’s journey of soul, swing and groove as “a work in progress.”

“Since the beginning, I’ve never had anybody tell me not to play whatever idea I might have,” he said. “It continues to be that way. Nobody is saying no, so you can bring into the music anything you want. We call ourselves a soul band, but really, it’s much more than that. The influences are very, very broad. Everybody has a lot of music that they bring to Tower of Power to make it what it is. There are all these different influences – jazz, funk, Latin music, everything. It’s a challenging mix of all those things. To put it into a package that makes it Tower of Power is great fun, but it’s still a work in progress.”

Born out of a Bay Area scene in 1968 that was deep in the throes of psychedelia but rooted in rich traditions of rock, soul and blues, Tower of Power broke through to international acclaim with a trio of summer hits from the early 1970s – “You’re Still a Young Man” from 1972 and “What is Hip?” and “So Very Hard to Go,” both from 1973. Each emphasized a wildly muscular horn section, a sensibility for Big Band-level rhythm-and-blues and razor-sharp grooves that constantly kept the music in motion while regally guiding ballads and mid-tempo soul serenades.

The band’s influences, however, have reached far beyond its own fan base. Tower of Power’s famed horn section – still with band chieftain Emilio “Mimi” Castillo on tenor saxophone and co-founding member Stephen “Doc” Kupka on baritone sax - has been featured on hit recordings by Santana, Little Feat, Elton John, Huey Lewis and the News, Bonnie Raitt and Aerosmith, among many others.

For Garibaldi, who joined Tower of Power in time for its 1970 debut album “East Bay Grease,” inspiration came from soaking up percussive concepts from all manner of groove merchants, from Sonny Payne in the Count Basie Orchestra to Bernard Purdie and his work with King Curtis and, eventually, Aretha Franklin to jazz innovators Tony Williams and Elvin Jones. One chance encounter with a soul music colossus, though, stands out.

“My friends took me to see James Brown here in the Bay Area in 1965,” Garibaldi recalled. “He was playing at the San Jose Civic Auditorium. I’d never seen anything like that. We went down in the afternoon. The door to the auditorium was open, so we went inside and the band was rehearsing. We walked up to the stage, me and my friends, and nobody said one word to us. They let us stand there and watch the whole rehearsal. We were taking it all in. I was just stunned at how cool it was, at how much precision there was and the energy and discipline of the music. Then we went back to the show that night and it was stupid great. At that moment I realized this was the kind of music I wanted to play. I wanted to have that force in music. It was so ... I don’t even know how to describe it.”

Garibaldi would remain with Tower of Power through its 1974 “Back to Oakland” album (a record whose inventive instrumental tune “Squibb Cakes” remains part of the band’s concert repertoire today). But as with many bands from popular music genres of the day, drugs and alcohol became prevalent. That led to the drummer’s exit in 1975. There were a few reunions in subsequent years, but by 1990, Garibaldi had departed Tower of Power seemingly for good. The separation would last for 18 years.

“When the band started getting into drugs and alcohol, that changed everything,” Garibaldi said. “When that is involved, it changes everyone. It divided us. It unified them because that’s what happens when people use, but then the ones that didn’t want to do that, it excludes. That’s just part of the way those things work. I couldn’t be around it. I wanted to have a life that was full of my art. I wanted to have friends. I wanted to have close relationships with people. It was impossible. After the times that I left, it was like coming back to a relationship you wanted to work but still doesn’t, so you’ve got to leave again. When I left the last time, I didn’t think I would ever able to be with these guys again.”

Fast forward to 1998. Having played on a recording session for a solo album by Kupka, the drummer was impressed by the band members’ renewed sobriety. When a drumming vacancy opened up in Tower of Power that summer, Castillo contacted his former bandmate about climbing aboard again.

“I thought, ‘Okay. Let’s give this a try.’ So Mimi and I decided we would see if we still liked each other and all that, so I came back on. We just started doing gigs. After about six months, we were in the Netherlands at the North Sea Jazz Festival and I realized at this particular gig, ‘Wow, this is my home. I’m back.’ So I came back and I’m here. Everybody’s got their lives in order and it’s a great thing.”

Returning to Tower of Power also meant reconnecting with bassist Francis “Rocco” Prestia. Along with the band’s signature horn sound, the grooves created between Garibaldi and Prestia were among the most distinctive traits of the Tower of Power sound. It also meant the ensemble’s four mainstay members – Castillo, Kupka, Prestia and Garibaldi – were working together again.

Sidelined by illness in 2018, Prestia died in 2020 at the age of 69.

“Rocco could play with a drummer like nobody’s business. He just had this radar that connected him to the grooves. His playing, from a technical standpoint, was completely wrong. He made up his own way to play. His technique was completely ass backwards.

“We did clinics together in Italy and he wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t say anything to anybody. I said, ‘Rocco, you’ve got to tell people what you’re about and how you do what you do.’ He’d say, ‘Nah, I don’t want to do that.’ But, finally, he did, and when he got to telling and showing people what he did, they went crazy. Then you couldn’t shut him up.”

With recording underway on a Christmas planned for release this fall, Tower of Power continues to let its soul sound flow through music executed with spirit and precision but fortified by a half-century worth of intuitive and improvisational smarts.

“It’s like Mark Twain says. ‘Don’t let school get in the way of your education.’ We have very accomplished players in the band, but nobody plays by the textbook. We’ve put together our music in a way we like. We still do it that way, and it’s very rewarding. Thankfully, this is not contact sports where you get hurt and you can’t do it for a while. Music is art. You can do it for your entire life. If you pay attention to it and care for it, it grows. History shows that. I think that’s where we’re at.”

Tower of Power

When: Feb. 22, 8 p.m.

Where: Lexington Opera House, 401 W. Short.

Tickets: $50.50-$76 at ticketmaster.com.