Sharing their love of groove: Local musicians band together to create Tentacle
On a Saturday afternoon in early November, when the weather was still moderate, anyone who happened to stroll by Five Points Plaza in downtown Greenville experienced an unexpected treat: a pop-up concert of a sort, featuring Tentacle. The band name and logo sum up the ensemble well: each musician brings his individual talent to the group and together they combine forces to create something that is a unique creature of its own. They call it “funk jazz fusion boogaloo” but pedestrians probably just called it good music.
The story of how they got together is part happenstance and Providence. Band leader Jon Snyder found himself relocated to Greenville from Denver, Colorado in 2018.
“They legalized marijuana there and everyone’s property values quadrupled,” he said. “So I said it’s probably a good time for us to sell and we put our resumés out and I got a job offer in Greenville doing code enforcement. So I said, ‘I guess we’re moving to Greenville!’ That was in 2018.”
Snyder put feelers out for like-minded musicians and started jamming. It was not long before he met drummer Peyton Wynne and bass player Brian Shewchuck. Snyder and Wynne hit it off when they realized that they were both fans of Grant Green, a jazz boogaloo guitar player from the ‘50s and ‘60s. The three played together along with another guitar player for about a year, until they decided to change directions.
Snyder explained: “The band was taking a turn, like Allman Brothers guitar duo–it really wasn’t the direction the three of us wanted to go. We wanted more of a contemporary jazz, but we just played what came out. So we decided to scratch almost all the songs we had, start over, and let’s do the kind of material we really want to do. And that’s when we found Jim Gilliam. He came down and sat in with us once and we started playing those songs we wanted to play and everything just clicked.”
The band started going through songs, a mixture of covers and originals with Snyder doing most of the writing in the band and arranging.
“Most of the cover tunes we had, we reharmonized them,” Snyder said. “We like to change them up and kind of do them a little more clever than what the original was,” Snyder said. “So we rehearsed once a week for about a year before we decided to try to get out somewhere–get people to hear us.”
While Tentacle as a band might be new to the local performance circuit, individually the musicians have amassed quite an experienced resume.
Jon Snyder
Snyder grew up in New Jersey with professional country/western musician parents who played the Grand Ole Opry in the early ‘80s. Instruments were around the house and Snyder started with violin at age 4, graduating to bass and eventually guitar. His twin brother played drums and together they toured in a band, Copious Jive, for about 10 years.
Snyder played by ear, “noodling” as he called it, until he was about 30 years old; he studied with a retired jazz professor Joseph Cinderella, who had been a session guitar player in the ‘50s in New York City.
“He played an 8 string guitar,” Snyder said, “and it was tuned in thirds, which was interesting. So he could grab more piano chords. I knew no music theory whatsoever. I remember sitting down with him the first time I met him and he said, ‘Just play for me.’ And he said, ‘Jon, you play beautifully but your mind is like an infant when it comes to music theory. You know absolutely nothing.’ And I really didn’t.”
Snyder’s musical journey took him on a roller coaster ride to hip-hop producer Rodney Jenkins’ mansion on Christmas Eve to play for a Michelle Branch and Destiny’s Child album, followed by an offer to do a 3-month European tour with Mary J. Blige.
“I didn’t do the tour,” Snyder said. “I was on my way to California to go meet my fiancé and I thought, ‘If I get an opportunity like this once, I’ll get another one. If I leave and go on tour right now, she’ll leave me.’ It was ironic the way it happened. She had an apartment all set up for us in San Diego. I moved there and within three months, we broke up. But honestly at the time, I don’t think I would have been able to hang with the musicians she was playing with. They thought I could or else they wouldn’t have offered it to me. But once I started studying with Joe and learning all these chords and music theory, it made me nervous to even think back about what it would have been like to be on stage with Mary J. Blige when I knew nothing.”
Peyton Wynne
Originally from High Point, Wynne went to school in Chapel Hill and Raleigh and “ended up in Greenville when my wife got into dental school in 2014.”
“My first instrument was a classical guitar with a handful of lessons from my neighbor who was a big Dave Matthews and Clapton fan,” Wynne said. “I started out learning basic chords and have played the guitar off and on my whole life. It wasn’t until middle school when I decided to take up percussion in band class and had an opportunity to sit behind a complete drum kit that I fell in love with the drums. Besides school, I’ve never taken a formal drum lesson.”
Wynne was 12 when he joined his first band. After playing in various jam bands, Wynne said he sold his kit and gave up playing altogether for 16 years.
“When my son was born I decided to see if I still had it in me and to my wife’s surprise I showed up at the house one day with a kit,” he said. “It took about six months to get my chops back and it was then that I decided to try and find somebody interested enough to give me a shot at sitting in with them. I came across Jon and that was exactly 3 years ago this month and I’ve been falling back in love with it again ever since.”
Brian Shewchuk
From the Philadelphia area, Shewchuk’s father was a music teacher and professional musician. His brother is an accomplished professional guitarist, bassist, and drummer in Philadelphia. Shewchuk started playing guitar at about 10 years old, taking private lessons and studying jazz guitar throughout high school.
After playing in a progressive rock band and jazz bands throughout high school and college, including playing saxophone, he started playing bass in a Philadelphia area blues band, the Fish Fry Swingers. After moving to Greenville in 2005, he played bass with the Good Times Band until Tentacle. He also likes to play and sing bluegrass tunes with acoustic guitar. Shewchuk is currently a professor in the biochemistry and molecular biology department at ECU School of Medicine.
Jim Gilliam
Born in Fayetteville, Gilliam started at ECU in 1975 to study saxophone with James Houlik and did graduate work with Henry Doskey and John O’Brien. A highlight was playing at the Montreal Jazz Fest in ‘96 with Carroll Dashiell and ECU Jazz Ensemble. Gilliam has played in a number of bands, including Sea Breeze, Castle, Four Knights, Emerald City, and Reflecting Tarboro Swing Band. He played with the Lloyd Hinson Orchestra 1970-1990 and jazz combos with J.D. Joyner and Joe DiStefano over the years. He currently plays with Steve Creech.
“So grateful to be with this group, Tentacle,” Gilliam said. “Jon, Brian, and Peyton are great musicians to share this musical journey. Jon being our main composer and leader, certainly he has found a niche of flow for life’s ear candy. Come see us! We are so excited to share our love of ‘groove’ with you.”
Tentacle’s upcoming shows: Jan 18 Nash Hot Chicken, GVL; Jan 25 The Brown Pelican, New Bern; Feb 22 Uptown Brewery,.GVL
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Originally published in the Daily Reflector December 7, 2024.
