Here's a tip for young music journalists just starting out: before you interview artists who might be headed to your city for a gig, check out their tour itinerary. That approach comes in handy before calling up Delvon Lamarr of the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, who are booked to play the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival this month. It's quite a surprise to see that his Washington State group—which specializes in funky, groove-based instrumental soul-jazz—had gigs lined up in the U.S. opening for jarring guitar-rock acts like Jack White and the Black Crowes.

"I'm really excited about those shows," says Lamarr, on the phone from his home in Pullman, Wash., near the Washington/Idaho border. "Ya know, it's one of those things where I feel our music fits in a lotta different genres. Like no matter if you're old or young or whatever you're into, it seems to attract people. And that's one of the reasons we call it feel-good music, because it's less a genre and more of a feeling. Everybody grooves on DLO3."

Another glance at Lamarr's touring schedule reveals that the Hammond B3 player—along with guitarist Jimmy James and drummer Dan Weiss—is set to play Antone's, the fabled blues joint in Austin, Texas where music greats such as Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Fabulous Thunderbirds honed their chops. Lamarr has actually played the venue once before, in 2018, when he joined the likes of organists Ike Stubblefield and Red Young at the Antone's B3 Summit.

"We're all rooted in pretty much jazz and blues," cites Lamarr, "that's kind of what we always listened to. Like Jimmy James especially; he's really into the blues. If you talk to him about music it's either Stax, Motown, or blues. That's it. And I grew up listening to blues and gospel because of my mother, who used to sing in church and everything like that. Later kinda in my teens I discovered jazz and that became like my love."

Before traveling to Texas for that Antone's gig in September, though, the DLO3 will head to Europe for dates in NATO countries like France, the Netherlands, and Poland. Lamarr says he isn't too concerned about playing the concert in Warsaw, which isn't far away from war-ravaged Ukraine.

"We played in Budapest the month before last," he explains, "and we talked about it, the invasion of Ukraine and stuff like that, and I asked were people concerned with that happening to them. It's a country that's kind of on the edge [of Ukraine], so it could happen to them, and it was interesting just talking to people. But for them, they're still goin', still thrivin', and they're still doin' their thing. That's just something that's in their mind, but it doesn't stop them from basically livin' life. And I kind of expect the same thing in Poland, you know."

The laid-back Lamarr jokingly suggests that Vladimir Putin should give his group's feel-good tunes a listen—"Maybe he'll mellow out"—before pondering the question of whether he believes that music itself can help bring peace to the troubled world.

"I wish it would and I hope it does," he replies. "It is much needed nowadays, more than ever, you know. Things are just gettin' crazy."

Lamarr first became aware of the power of music at age 11, mainly through his four-years-older brother Tyrone, who was heavily into hip-hop in the late-'80s, early-'90s. His bro put together a little studio with a drum machine and a sampler and started collecting vinyl and listening intently.

"My brother had a really good ear for making hip-hop beats," recalls Lamarr, "because he'd hear things in songs that most people wouldn't even hear. He'd be listening to some weird records too--you can't even read the front of it, it's like Japanese or whatever. He'd put it on, and I used to sit there thinkin', 'Why is he listenin' to this? That's weird.' And then he'd just be like, 'Oh man, you hear that?', and he'd put the needle back and he'd sample it and he'd put a beat to it and it became this whole thing. I was super-impressed by my brother because he was able to hear the things, and so that's kind of where it started."

Lamarr also credits Tyrone with instilling in him a deep love of jazz. One day he handed him a cassette tape and said, 'Hey, I think you're gonna like this.' It was the 1970 compilation The Best of John Coltrane.

"The first track on there was 'My Favorite Things'," he says, "and I put that on and instantly fell in love with jazz. And from there I told my mom I wanted to play saxophone, so my mom got excited, because she loves the saxophone, so she went out that day and got me one. That's how excited she was that I wanted to play saxophone. She was not that happy that I only played it for about six, seven months, then switched to trumpet."

Lamarr didn't start playing organ till he was 22 or 23 years old, but the instrument came naturally to him. And today the music he creates with James and Weiss comes quite easily as well. He figures that about 80 percent of their songs come from jamming during soundchecks.

"We haven't rehearsed in like two, three years," he says. "True story. We're all just keen, and we're really good listeners, so when we get to a gig, during the soundcheck, sometimes either Jimmy or I'll bust out a groove, or Dan will play the drumbeat, and we'll just start messing around with that. Sometimes we'll even end up playing that [new] song during the show that night.

"It's all about having fun musically," adds Lamarr. "Ya know, I don't worry about mistakes, I don't really care about all that. That's what makes music real to me, you know. I love when I see my heroes and greats up there, where they just totally eat it. I love to see that, 'cause it makes me feel human as a musician, you know."

The Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio plays the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts on June 27 as part of the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival.