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About Mostly Other People Do the Killing
Instrument: Band / ensemble / orchestra
Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Setting the Record Straight
by Troy Collins
Mostly Other People Do the Killing is frequently typecast as one of today's most humorously irreverent young jazz groups, based in no small part on their provocative name, which was inspired by a quote attributed to inventor Leon Theremin--a survivor of the Soviet gulag who exonerated Stalin because “mostly other people did the killing." Bassist and founder Moppa Elliott (born Matthew Thomas Elliott) has repeatedly insisted in interviews that the band isn't actually intended to be irreverent however, as much ...
Continue ReadingMostly Other People Do the Killing: The Coimbra Concert
by Mark Corroto
The stand-up comic begins, “I went to a day of rage riot the other day, and a Moppa Elliott concert broke out." He might continue with, “Take my jazz canon, please." That is just what the bassist's quartet, Mostly Other People Do The Killing, does--seize the jazz standard and demolish it. The Coimbra Concert is the first live recording by the group, following its fourth studio record, Forty Fort (Hot Cup, 2009).Just as beboppers were criticized for ruining ...
Continue ReadingMostly Other People Do the Killing: Forty Fort
by Eyal Hareuveni
The experience of listening to the highly gifted quartet Mostly Other Do the Killing (MOPDtK) is like taking a ride on roller-coaster while drunk, but still trusting your life in the hands of a wild driver who often has some epileptic fits. It is fun, no doubt; a wild fun, like going to a circus. But after the surprise is over, and MOPDtK continues to surprise with every new release, it's a dizzying experience that can require rest from such ...
Continue ReadingMostly Other People Do The Killing: Forty Fort
by Raul d'Gama Rose
Several wonderful things distinguish Mostly Other People Do The Killing (MOPDtK) from almost any other band playing today in the long shadows of Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman. These are, in no particular order: a wild humor; an extreme sense of the angular melody; brave harmonies; and a leaping sense of rhythm. None of these pay any direct obsequiousness to the so-called jazz idiom, but they do not have to. The trance-like omnipresence of the drums throughout Forty Fort makes ...
Continue ReadingMostly Other People Do the Killing: Forty Fort
by Jakob Baekgaard
Even though jazz is an improvised art that's bursting with the unexpected, some groups stand out as being especially adventurous and wild. In terms of anarchy of sound, Mostly Other People Do the Killing is in a class of its own. On their fourth effort, Forty Fort, the group descends further into musical madness, exploring a wealth of styles that would make even Miles Davis blush. “Pen Argyll" kicks things off with its punctuated rock groove and ...
Continue ReadingMostly Other People Do the Killing: Forty Fort
by Dan McClenaghan
Irreverent devils, aren't they, these four guys who make up the piano-less quartet called Mostly Other People Do the Killing (MOPDtK)? This is Our Moosic (Hot Cup Records, 2008) was a play on Ornette Coleman's This Is Our Music (Atlantic, 1960) in title and with the cover photo and design. Forty Fort sports a cover laid out to look like one of the the classic Impulse! Records albums of the same time period. And then there's the music.With ...
Continue ReadingMostly Other People Do The Killing: This Is Our Moosic
by Eyal Hareuveni
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 ...
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