Brooklyn's The MK Groove Orchestra swings like one wild and reckless big-band bastard. It clearly enjoys grinding the gears as much as it does shifting smoothly. There's brass creamy enough to rival Glenn Miller, just enough weirdness to make Sun Ra smile, and plenty of classic funk to make Seka horny; everything from moonlight serenades to free jazz chaos to even a little waka-chika-waka-chika waka-chika boom.

The horns cut regal and bright with random tart twists where the band injects the swing. And there's plenty of danger, too. Call the music outlaw big band. That's not to say it's all nuts; the Orchestra delves into Afro-Cuban and traditional big band as well as old-school funk, and bangs it out honest and precise. But when you blend it all together...

"Your average straight-ahead jazz fan may think we're a funky weird band," says band leader Mike Kammers. "People that like funk think we're a jazz band. And the promoters bring us in because I think, at the very least, we're exciting."

There was plenty of excitement at the 2007 Rochester International Jazz Festival when the band - dressed entirely in black and with several members sporting mohawks - commandeered the stage on Gibbs Street. Even after a mass exodus of the khaki'd and the square, the band played to a large, enthusiastic crowd and rocked their pants off.

"I think at the end of the set, however weird we get, we can always bring it back," Kammers says. "The over-arching logic of our entire set sort of incorporates a lot of things, with the funk as our base."

But the band's funky groove is a powder keg. It kicks traditional big band horns in the ass, along with Kammers' impish composer curiosity. This can sometimes leave an audience in the lurch.

"I honestly don't know what the audience expects," he says. "But when I started the band, putting the word ‘groove' in the title I think ultimately set up people's expectations for a groove band. But I've listened to so much music and played so much music, my definition of groove might be a lot broader than the average person's."

You hear groove, you think funk.

"Yeah," he says. "And I love funk music. But I'm kinda restless. I don't want to sound like a total pretentious snob, but I hear a lot of mediocre funk bands playing one-four vamps over and over and over, and it just bores the hell out of me. I have to keep it interesting for myself without alienating my audience."

Kammers has had moments where his influences battle for dominance. "When I started the band, I was going for a big-band funk thing," he says. "I was really influenced by albums like Jimmy McGriff's ‘Electric Funk' and all that late 60's, early 70's funk. But my musical nature is really restless and eclectic. Maybe I got too into Sun Ra for a few years and sorta scared people away. But I like Sly and the Family Stone - the first album, too. I like Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn; the way they make a horn section sound. But at the same time, I'm a child of the 80's and 90's, so I love rock music...anything that's raw and visceral and expressive."

To give you an idea of Kammers' heavy vision and the band's potential, if the all-instrumental group were to ever plug a singer in up front, Kammers knows who and what he wants.

"I would want somebody that just rocks," he says. "I want the lead singer of AC/DC, or Henry Rollins; somebody that's just gonna throw down."

And at this point, fans of the band expect and get a throw down. But The MK Groove Orchestra doesn't pander to its audience. Consequently, the music is unfettered and infinitely more genuine.

"As far as where I stand with the band conceptually, it's where my interests as a musician and composer meet my prospective audience's interests," Kammers says. "I'm just trying to make music that's honest to me. I always like wedding disparate things into the music in a way that strikes me as novel. Personally, I'm really inspired by the Afro-Cuban big band tradition - bands like Machito and Tito Puente. But, I'm not Cuban, I'm not Puerto Rican; I'm a white guy, so I try and take those influences and use them in a way that's informed without sounding contrived."

With this tug-o-war going on between dissonance and convention in Kammers' head, you'd think having a big band would provide an adequate pallet to flesh it out. Or maybe not.

"Don't start a big band," he says. "It's a terrible idea. Everything's harder with a big band. But I love it."

The MK Groove Orchestra w/Filthy Funk

Dubland Underground, 315 Alexander St

Saturday, October 11

9 p.m. | $5 | 232-7550