Coming up with a technical definition for funk isn't easy, but New York Times critic Jon Pareles did a pretty good job in his review of a Nov. 2003 concert by the New Orleans band Galactic. Stating that the "discipline of funk [is] the repetition and deliberate space that give the music its solidity and swing," he then complimented the six musicians who "showed off by restraining themselves."
Restraint sounds like the opposite of what a band should practice in order to get an audience dancing, but by keeping the beat slightly off-center in order to create tension, funk musicians allow their audience to provide the release themselves -- with their own bodies. Galactic's stylistic forebears are hometown legends The Meters, James Brown's contemporaries in the invention of funk as a musical genre.
While everyone acknowledges Galactic's funk capabilities, they are still described as a "jam band." Even Pareles does it. Jam bands are infamous for not restraining themselves; for, in fact, following any and all impulses.