Something that few listeners will ever experience happened on stage Friday night at Jefferson Center’s Shaftman Hall.

In truth, quite a few rare things happened during the first set of “Snarky Puppy’s Family Dinner,” a show recorded with its audience onstage for a forthcoming CD/DVD set.

But the astounding thing happened near the end, and it came from the voice of Lalah Hathaway, a daughter of Donny Hathaway, the late jazz, soul and R&B master singer and songwriter.

Lalah Hathaway was singing “It’s Something,” her cover of a Brenda Russell number. As Snarky Puppy slammed on the mid-tempo, half-time, two-chord vamp that took the song out, Hathaway harmonized with herself. She split her voice into two voices, and the notes sympathized beautifully as she rolled them over the changes for a measure or two.

It’s something that monks hide themselves away for years to learn. And there she was, letting it go. Jaws dropped. One of the harmony singers turned around, a huge smile on her face, to look at Snarky Puppy drummer Robert “Sput” Searight, who had arranged this version. He smiled back and kept slapping his kit.

“Did you just hear her sing two notes?” bandleader/bassist Michael League said to the audience after it was over. “I thought I did, too.”

His ears weren’t playing tricks on him. And soon, listeners around the world can hear and see it on the recording.

When the band releases the set through its label, groundUP/Ropeadope, part of the profits will go to the Music Lab at Jefferson Center, an after-school incubator for children interested in music performance, recording and business.

Friday night’s second set and a show today were to be recorded as well. Today, the show will take a more traditional route, with folks seated out in the auditorium for more music from Snarky, Hathaway, Malika Tirolien, Shayna Steele, Lucy Woodward and others. In a bonus, tonight’s performance will feature Music Lab students Bukuru Celestin, 20; Gabe Morales, 14; lab graduate Judi Jackson, 19; and the newest member of the lab, 11-year-old Jayna Brown.

With seven songs from seven different performers, Snarky Puppy — typically an instrumental jazz/funk act — spent about 90 minutes as the backing band for a collection of unique voices. As cameras caught the action, about a dozen musicians, including three harmony singers, nailed everything in single takes.

As they worked, audience members wearing wireless headphones sat onstage — some right in the middle of the circle of performers, others just off the periphery, semicircled behind the players. Mill Mountain Theatre had provided chairs, couches, tables and lamps for the parlor vibe, and a chandelier from Black Dog Salvage hung overhead.

League had told the audience that if something went “horribly wrong,” they might have to do another take of a song. But things did not go wrong. And that wasn’t a surprise to people who had heard the band in past performances, in Roanoke and elsewhere.

Before the set, Jefferson Center executive director Cyrus Pace asked for a show of hands from people who had traveled from out of the region to see the show. About half of the 50 people raised hands.

Max Palmer, 24, of the Raleigh/Durham, N.C., area, was one of them. Palmer, who plays drums with the Lizzy Ross Band, was sitting right behind the battery of Searight and percussionist Nate Werth.

“As a drummer, I appreciate percussion, which is why I picked this spot” to sit, Palmer said.

But he enjoys the entire act and has seen it several times. He remembered a slow Sunday night in Raleigh, where very few people showed up for the gig.

“They raged just as hard,” he said.

And while Snarky Puppy fans haven’t clamored for vocals from the band, the experience energized this audience.

Tirolien showed great range and vocal elasticity on “I’m Not The One,” a slow throb of a 12/8 shuffle.

Steele was a gospel-rock powerhouse whose vocals reached for the sky while singing of depression in “Gone Under.”

Woodward’s “Too Hot To Last,” which she co-wrote with League, had the bassist switching to baritone electric guitar for the pounding pop-rock number. Woodward wailed like a rock star.

Tony Scherr, whose main gig is bassist for jazz/Americana guitarist Bill Frisell, played strange slide guitar licks and sang his “Turned Away” with world-weariness.

N’Dambi worked her low voice over a song called “Deep,” about a love that stirs her so she “can’t get no sleep.”

Magda Giannikou played accordion and sang in French for the Latin-tinged “Amour T’es La,” and got audience participation on the chorus.

Chantae Cann showed both power and restraint on her “Free Your Dreams.”

And through it all Snarky Puppy did what it does — provide deep grooves and instrumental fireworks in all the right spots.

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