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Jazz Articles about Moppa Elliott
James Brandon Lewis, Mick Rossi and More
by Maurice Hogue
Finding your own path is one thing, staying on it is another. This show features several musicians who are doing that today. Bassist Moppa Elliott's urge to challenge the idiom is not confined to his occasionally controversial Mostly Other People Do The Killing. His new recording, Jazz Band/Rock Band/Dance Band, presents three distinctly different bands and musical approaches on this triple-set for Hot Cup. Many of the usual MOPDTK suspects are on hand. Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis hasn't ...
Continue ReadingMostly Other People Do the Killing, Sirius Juju and Unspeakable Garbage at Jerry's on Front
by Geno Thackara
Mostly Other People Do the Killing/Sirius Juju/Unspeakable GarbageJerry's on FrontPhiladelphia, PAFebruary 16, 2019 Twenty blocks and a world away from the clubs and bars of Philadelphia's city center, the experimental art space of Jerry's on Front is a room one would hardly imagine for music at all. It's a nondescript one-car-garage-sized space squeezed into a row of shuttered storefronts, looking more suitable for a woodworking space or fly-by-night pawn shop. Dimness makes the bare wood ...
Continue ReadingMoppa Elliott: Still, Up In The Air
by Luca Canini
Non è facile volere bene a quel brontolone del contrabbasso quando decide di mettersi in proprio. Il legno, le corde, l'archetto, il suono goffo e introverso, le note slabbrate, imprecise, la fatica immane di cavare sangue dal più rapa degli strumenti: poche altre situazioni in ambito improvvisativo sanno essere più scorbutiche e meno amichevoli. Eppure la letteratura in materia abbonda. Dalle pioneristiche meditazioni di Barre Phillips alle recenti escursioni di John Edwards e Mark Dresser (recuperate lo spettacolare Unveil, edito ...
Continue ReadingMoppa Elliott: Still, Up In The Air
by Mark Sullivan
In his usual role as bassist and leader of the jazz group Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Moppa Elliott focuses on composing and bandleading. So his first solo double-bass album represents a real departure. In many ways it resembles band mate Jon Irabagon's recent solo sopranino saxophone album Inaction is an Action: an often abstract exploration of sound using a single instrument. Elliott plays a series of improvisations which were consciously intended to be as nonlinear as possible.
Continue ReadingMoppa Elliott: Still, Up In The Air
by Karl Ackermann
The founder and bassist of Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Matthew “Moppa" Elliott, has kept his own solos to a minimum on MOPDtK recordings, giving the spotlight over to trumpeter Peter Evans, saxophonist Jon Irabagon and now pianist Ron Stabinsky. However, his very recent participation as one of the Big Five Chord quintet, on guitarist Jon Lundbom's Make Magic Happen (Hot Cup Records, 2016) featured an eye-opening solo on Ornette Coleman's “Law Years." That performance made for a perfect ...
Continue ReadingMostly Other People Do the Killing: The Coimbra Concert
by AAJ Italy Staff
I lettori più affezionati dovrebbero sapere di quale smodata considerazione godano i Mostly Other People Do the Killing su queste pagine virtuali. Tre lunghi anni sono passati da quando l'epifanico Shamokin!!! ne segnalò la rumorosa presenza sul pianeta-jazz; due dall'altrettanto entusiasmante This Is Our Moosic. Da allora la fama del quartetto è doverosamente cresciuta. Moppa Elliott e soci si sono fatti un nome e una reputazione, hanno varcato l'Atlantico e si sono esibiti in mezza Europa. L'Italia, ovviamente, sta nell'altra ...
Continue ReadingMostly Other People Do the Killing: Shamokin!!!
by AAJ Italy Staff
Immaginate. Immaginate di essere seduti in platea al Birdland o al Cafè Bohemia. Metà anni Cinquanta. Aria viziata, notte fredda e davanti a voi un tumbler con ghiaccio e whisky. Al tavolino accanto due adescatrici provocanti e succinte, dal cicaleccio sguaiato e irritante. Sul palco Art Blakey e i Jazz Messengers nella loro primissima incarnazione, con Clifford Brown alla tromba e Lou Donaldson al contralto. Il concerto sta per cominciare e già pregustate un paio d’ore di Hard bop aggressivo ...
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