The Bear Creek Music Fest, down in Live Oak, Fla., is the greatest funkfest in the world, featuring top-name, A-list artists, as well as a plethora of new talent.
I participate each year, excited to see great bands like this year's headliner, the Trey Anastasio Band, and annual participants like Dumpstaphunk, Soulive, New Mastersounds and Lettuce, but finding new bands is the real draw, as each year I seem to find another band that gets my motor running.

This year, the special surprise was a band out of Brooklyn, NY, called Turkuaz. A 10-piece soul/funk extravaganza, these guys literally freaked me out. They met while attending Berklee College of Music in Boston, growing out of the meeting of the minds of guitarist/vocalist Dave Brandwein and bassist Taylor Shell.

That grew into the band featuring a three-piece horn section made up of Greg Sanderson on alto sax, Joshua Schwarz on tenor sax and vocals, and Chris Brouwers on trumpet, an uber-tight rhythm section featuring Michaelangelo Carruba on drums and the aforementioned Shell on ridiculously fat bass, Brandwein and Craig Brodhead on guitar, and the absolutely delightful Nicky Egan and Shane Allen providing backup vocals.

Watching two complete sets from this band was the highlight of my entire weekend at Bear Creek. The band’s music is old school soul/rhythm and blues, very well-written songs with an energy that is over the top and highly infectious. Think: the high-energy, family vibe of Sly and the Family Stone meets the incredible precision of James Brown's band. The songs are catchy, exciting, and guaranteed to make you dance. The horn section is downright thrilling, with tight, precise arrangements that keep the energy at an amazing level even on the medium-tempo tunes.

The female vocalists have the vivaciousness and attention-grabbing presence that adds so much to the big picture, and have such a unique fullness to their vocal arrangements that you'd think there were more than just the two of them. Add to this the constant party that is their presentation, and you've got one of the most exciting new bands I've seen in decades.

Turkuaz is so much fun, and that fun is captured beautifully and astoundingly on their new album “Zerbert” as well as their eponymous debut album. I highly recommend that you go to the band’s website, turkuazband.com, immediately and purchase both of them. See the band live, even if you have to travel a long distance. You'll be glad you did.