Snarky Puppy/Sassafraz

In a few ways, the first couple minutes of Snarky Puppy’s latest album, groundUP, tells you a lot about band you’re about to listen to. It’s a bit of smooth jazz with plenty of horns and subdued keyboard to please the mellowest of jazz enthusiasts. The band — which won the “Best Jazz Act” award from the Dallas Observer three years in a row — features more than 25 funky members, though they don’t always perform as such a large unit. Even still, their music is cool enough and instrumentation crisp enough that they’re likely to put on a memorable show with whatever variation of their lineup is on tap. (Jacob DeSmit)