The Jai-Alai Savant

Ralph Darden, the singing and guitar-playing innovator from the Jai-Alai Savant, explores the intersection of first-wave punk and weighty dub reggae like few have because the heydays from the Ruts, early Law enforcement, and Sandinista!-period Clash. Actually, it has been Darden’s primary musical curiosity since at least the middle-’90s, when he 1st gained interest as one-quarter of Franklin, a Philadelphia music group also offering AM/FM’s Brian Sokel, which released many singles and EPs aswell as two complete albums, Building inside a and E and Franklin, before splitting in 2002. Nearly instantly, Darden drafted bassist Mike Ali and drummer Jeremy Gewertz to record the Jai-Alai Savant’s debut EP, The Thunderstatement, for the far-reaching indie Yellow metal Standard Laboratories. Third , EP, Darden shifted from Philadelphia to Chicago and discovered a new tempo section, drummer Michael Bravine and bassist Dan Nash Snyder, aswell as the strange “Main Taylor,” who’s acknowledged with “beats, dubs, and ideas” but doesn’t in fact show up on the albums. Carrying out a single within the Western european label Town Slang, the revamped Jai-Alai Savant released The Air travel from the Bass Delegate, a loosely disguised parable of Darden’s get away in the Philadelphia music picture.