(Modern Jazz / Terrorist Be-Bop) Mostly Other People Do the Killing - The Is Our Moosic - 2008, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

A cheeky play on both Ornette Coleman's classic record This Is Our Music (Atlantic, 1960) and the name of a small town in Elliott's home state of Pennsylvania, This Is Our Moosic is the third studio album from bassist Moppa Elliott's terrorist bebop band Mostly Other People Do The Killing. Bolstered by a youthful visceral intensity, this album features the mercurial quartet's historically aware yet stylistically irreverent take on the jazz tradition.
The veteran lineup of saxophonist Jon Irabagon, trumpeter Peter Evans and drummer Kevin Shea once again joins Elliott on a dynamic session that vacillates between extremes with mischievous glee. Elliott's admiration for Ornette Coleman's innovations is detailed in the liner notes. With a similarly forward thinking mindset, Elliott brazenly pushes his ensemble forward into the future, drawing impertinently from the past for inspiration.
Even more so than on their previous release, Shamokin!!! (Hot Cup, 2007), Elliott allows individual musicians to spontaneously change their role within the ensemble at any given time. Each member of the quartet regularly breaks off on his own melodic, harmonic or rhythmic tangent, which creates interweaving four-way conversations that continuously fluctuate between cohesion and chaos. This endlessly oscillating collage of inside/outside aesthetics and role reversals eradicates predefined notions of melody, harmony and rhythm as it ebbs and flows within a constantly evolving environment.
Evans and Irabagon are monster virtuosos on their respective horns, but their daunting technical abilities are subservient to their boundlessly creative approaches. Extended techniques and experimental textures are as integral to their phrasing as pentatonic scales, chromatic runs and blues changes. From caterwauling screeds to dulcet whispers, Evans and Irabagon run the gamut of expression, shifting between moods with stunning dexterity.
A magnanimous leader, Elliott is a stalwart supporting player; despite regular detours off the beaten path, he often acts as the quartet's rhythmic and harmonic lynchpin. Shea is a brutally punishing post-modern drummer; his fusillades of percussive fury have more in common with metal and punk than they do classic jazz dynamics. Together, they make a stunning rhythm section; their capacity for nuanced dynamics is revealed in small doses, but it is their quicksilver tempo shifts, coiled rhythmic interplay and thunderous volume that are most compelling.
The band traverses the entire jazz continuum to pilfer from various periods of history, taking each tune apart with characteristic wit. No style is left untouched as they deconstruct everything from Dixieland ("Two Boot Jacks") to swing ("Biggertown"), blues ("Effort, Patience, Diligence") to boogaloo ("Drainlick") and post-bop ("Fagundus") to smooth jazz ("East Orwell").
This Is Our Moosic is another stellar offering from one of today's most vibrant young ensembles. Mostly Other People Do the Killing travel through the history of jazz, re-contextualizing the past with an impertinent wit that keeps the music fresh and alive. ~ Troy Collins, AAJ
And the call came out from the emperor Wynton Marsalis to his loyal henchman Stanley Crouch, "Bring me the head of Moppa Elliott, and deliver his dome on a ride cymbal!” In fact, the Lord of Lincoln Center demanded the heads of all the members of the band Mostly Other People Do The Killing or MOPDTK. The PC police of the jazz canon could not allow these uprisings to gain popular acceptance. You must agree. We cannot have the 1960s all over again, can we?
In fact bassist Moppa Elliott wants us to relive the sixties and well, the twenties, the 1970s—all in one giant stew of sound. And ‘stew’ might be the perfect term for this music because it can mean both to boil, simmer, and steam, or perhaps the term for a place where prostitutes apply their trade; in other words. a whorehouse. And brothels were where jazzmen first applied their craft, in fact ‘jass’ or ‘jazz’ refers to copulation or coitus. But I digress
“You can put lipstick on a pig,” the band MOPDTK seems to be asking us (to borrow a phrase from this years elections), “but can you get the pig to take a bow?” In other words, you can play real jazz wearing a tuxedo, in Lincoln Center, but, folks, it will never be classical music.
This Is Our Moosic is the quartet’s third disc, following Shamokin!!! (2007) and their self-titled debut (2004). The members include leader and bassist Moppa Elliott, a graduate of Oberlin’s conservatory of Music, drummer Kevin Shea, saxophonist Jon Irabagon and trumpeter Peter Evans. Evans grabbed the attention of the jazz world last year, with his quartet recording for Firehouse 12 Records and an impressive solo outing for Evan Parker’s PSI label.
The closest comparison to other bands might be Steven Bernstein’s Sexmob or The Bad Plus. But where The Bad Plus is micro economics, MOPDTK is macro economics. They are extreme extroverts of jazz playing music at the highest level and they might just mix Freddie Hubbard with Freddy Fender.
For instance, Elliott’s tune “Biggertown” is a three rhythm change tune based loosely (very loosely) around the primary key centers of “Giant Steps.” If his band was anything but first rate, they could never attempt this degree of difficulty. Saying that, listening to the frenetic changes is both difficult and fun at the same time. This grab bag of thoughts persists throughout. The smooth jazz destruction of “East Orwell” opens like a sweet 1970s TV movie before disco thumps into the mix and then a thought salad verse introduces Ornette-like phrases that morph into Marshall Allen.
The boys aren’t afraid to play attractive music, squeezing out the blues-based “Effort, Patience, Diligence” or dealing with the boogaloo of “Drainlick,” both real booty shakers. Both tracks have incredible vibes. The rhythms are grounded in Elliott’s bass and drummer Kevin Shea, the American equivalent of Han Bennink. They play one cover, Billy Joel’s “Allentown.” The closer is played as a straight pop tune. Irony is certainly not dead. ~ Mark Corroto, AAJ
The cover of the third release by the avant-bop quartet Mostly Other People Do the Killing (MOPDtK) suggests the obvious for anyone who has listened to this excellent ensemble. They reference the classic 1960 Ornette Coleman Quartet Atlantic recording, This Is Our Music, not only by the precise, though humorous position of its members on the cover (an awareness in the greater narrative of jazz) but also in substance and spirit. The classic Coleman recording featured a rare interpretation of Gershwin's "Embraceable You," spinning its beautiful theme way beyond the articulations of the composer and Charlie Parker. Following Coleman's exemplary lead, MOPDtK—comprised of bassist Moppa Elliot, trumpeter Peter Evans, saxophonist Jon Irabagon (winner of the 2008 Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition,) and drummer Kevin Shea—is ready to challenge current conventional concepts. These include those within the jazz genre and also cultural sources—country, punk, and music similar to American modern composers John Cage or European thinkers such as Jacques Attali and Roland Barthes.
As on previous MOPDtK's releases, this one is charged with amazing virtuoso performances, brilliant ideas, and a richly nuanced knowledge of music history marked by a vibrant sense of adventure and tons of humor. The flux of ideas is constant and democratic, as if no member of the quartet leads the music, as these ideas shift and transform between tempi, dynamics and genres, resulting in contrasting layers of information, often within the same composition. Also as with earlier releases, the pieces are named after the odd and unbelievable names of towns from Elliot's home state of Pennsylvania.
MOPDtK's post-modern reconstruction of jazz styles does not mock past master innovations but stresses the need and importance of playfulness in music. The compositions hop between funky boogaloo to abstract improvisation ("Drainlick"), dixieland mixed with cartoonish dynamics ("Two Boot Jacks") and updated 1960s macho post-bop a-la Coltrane, Rollins and Henderson ("Fagundus"). A mix of themes includes a "Batman" and Claude Debussy composition ("The Bats In Belfry") and greasy pop jazz ("East Orwell"). Other enjoyable tracks contain a muscular bluesy vamp ("My Delightful Blues"), an ironic construction of three rhythm changes based on Coltrane's "Giant Steps" ("Biggertown"), an attempt to encompass all blues cliches ("Effort, Patience, Diligence") and a heartfelt comic cover of Billy Joel's "Allentown."
Brilliant. This release guarantees many joyful hours, appreciating the thoughtful performances while attempting to contextualize the myriad quotes and references scattered throughout. ~ Eyal Hareuveni, AAJ

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 5 from 4. May 2009
EAC extraction logfile from 16. January 2010, 20:43
Mostly Other People Do the Killing / The Is Our Moosic
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