Larry Braggs

Why did I wait so long? Tower of Power played six shows over three days this week at the Dakota Jazz Club and I didn't make it till their final gig.

Let's see, I went to "Les Miserables" on Tuesday, Wilco with Nick Lowe on Wednesday and Curtiss A's John Lennon tribute on Thursday (loved "Starting Over" and "Revolution" with some ab-libbed lyrics about Michelle Bachmann and her husband). Then I made it to the late show by Tower of Power.

"This is the most amazing band we've had all year," proprietor Lowell Pickett, who tends to call every act there "great," said in introducing the 10 p.m. show, which started about 10:45. "The most amazing band probably in this room."

Some 85 minutes later, Tower of Power certainly deserved high praise -- but maybe not quite the hyperbole uttered by Pickett.

The 10-piece, 44-year-old band threw down some eternally funky East Bay grease. It was fitting that the five-man horn section stood front and center on the smallish Dakota stage. They are the stars, with their distinctive depth and Oakland soul, which is nastier than what Sly Stone and the other San Francisco bands offered. Lead singer Larry Braggs, who impressed with his pliant tenor, had to perform at the side of the stage. Standing at the back of the stage, superb bassist Rocco Prestia, one of the three original members still with TOP, made the bottom swing.

TOP's heyday was the 1970s and to honor and illustrate the difference between their East Bay funk and the then-contemporaneous Southern funk of James Brown, the group played "Diggin' on James Brown," a tribute to the Godfather of soul, as well as his "Soul Power."

Of course, TOP did plenty from its own repertoire, including "You Got to Funkifize" and the hits "This Time It's Real," "What Is Hip" and "So Very Hard To Go," the ballad that found Braggs at his best. Even on the most prominent TOP songs, he added little jazzy filigree but stayed true to the original vibe recorded by Lenny Williams back in the day. (Braggs, who has been with TOP since 1999, is actually the group's vocalist of the longest tenure.)

Even though this was a funktastically satisfying show that had me and a roomful of baby-boomer soul fans on their feet dancing, I wish I would have seen some of the other Dakota sets so I could have heard "You're Still a Young Man," "Don't Change Horses (in the Middle of the Stream)," "Down to the Nightclub" and maybe even "Squib Cakes" — all of which spent considerable time on my turntable in the '70s.

Next time, for sure.