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Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Disasters Vol. 1
by Mike Jurkovic
Rest assured, Mostly Other People Do the Killing get the joke and on Disasters Vol.1, the amorphous collective's eleventh disc and this trio's riotous second, you either get the joke too or you don't. It really makes no never-mind to this eclectic bunch because MOPDtK know instinctively that, if you don't throw yourself off balance from time to time, (like every single time the opportunity presents itself) you're going to get deeply sucked into the muck and mire of human ...
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by Karl Ackermann
Mostly Other People Do the Killing has a way of making great music sound accidental. So Disasters Vol. 1 is as suitable a name for this collection as it would be for any of their fourteen albums. In past versions, they have boasted big names such as Jon Irabagon, Peter Evans, and rising talents like guitarist Brandon Seabrook. Drummer Kevin Shea and bassist/composer Moppa Elliot, are two-thirds of the current group and the remaining original members of MOPDtK. Ron Stabinsky ...
read moreMostly Other People Do The Killing: Disasters Vol. 1
by Jerome Wilson
Moppa Elliott's gonzo-surrealist jazz group, Mostly Other People Do The Killing, returns for a second album in its piano trio format with Elliott on bass, Ron Stabinsky on piano and Kevin Shea on drums. They are up to their usual tricks here, playing slapstick jazz which flits deliriously through all types of styles and sub-genres like an old Warner Brothers cartoon soundtrack. However there is a more serious added element on this album. Elliott, as he often does, named all ...
read moreMoppa Elliott: Jazz Band/Rock Band/Dance Band
by Jerome Wilson
Bassist Moppa Elliott is best known as the leader of the surrealistic jazz group, Mostly Other People Do The Killing, but his musical universe, encompassing work with symphony orchestras and new music ensembles, stretches much farther than that band's frantic music. This is reflected in this 2 CD set of Elliott leading three different types of groups, a jazz band, a rock band and a dance band. All three ensembles continue Elliott's off-center sensibilities, but in different ways. ...
read moreJon Lundbom & Big Five Chord: Harder On The Outside
by Jerome Wilson
A complex web of sampling, beat construction and live improvisation all led to this disc by guitarist Jon Lundbom and his group, Big Five Chord, a CD that is a heady stew of hard-edged funk grooves, squalling saxophones and gleeful guitar freakouts. This project started with saxophonist Bryan Murray sampling old Big Five Chord recordings and constructing new beats out of them. He then passed his work back to Lundbom who built new compositions out of it and ...
read moreJon Lundbom & Big Five Chord: Harder On The Outside
by Mark Corroto
Sometimes a single track can satisfy an album's worth of listening. You get that feeling with “People be Talking," the first song on Jon Lundbom's ninth release with his band Big Five Chord. His quintet packs everything into this kitchen sink composition. The piece is jazz-and-not-jazz, like Miles Davis affected in his transitional years between his second great quintet to jazz/rock fusion. But then again, it's not that at all. The propulsive 6/4 groove leaks an Afro-Cuban feel, and saxophonist ...
read moreDanny Fox Trio: The Great Nostalgist
by Jerome Wilson
It's no surprise that The Great Nostalgistby pianist Danny Fox and his trio has been released on Hot Cup, the label run by Mostly Other People Do The Killing's Moppa Elliott. It has the same quirky, off the beaten track quality as MOPDTK's recent piano trio CD, Paint, but in a drier, less madcap vein with a lot of angular melodies and references to other musical genres. The compositions, all Fox originals arranged by the trio, go through ...
read moreDanny Fox Trio: The Great Nostalgist
by Dan Bilawsky
A group like the Danny Fox Trio and an album like The Great Nostalgist both serve as strong reminders that there's no shortcut for building empathy and there's no technological advancement in the world that can substitute for big ears, strong reflexes, and their attendant responses. Togetherness is truly a time-honed ideal, and music benefits not from what captures and/or manipulates it, but from whence it comes. Rather than follow modern-day recording conventions for this one, Fox ...
read moreMostly Other People Do The Killing: Paint
by Jerome Wilson
Mostly Other People Do The Killing have released their second CD of 2017 and, in keeping with the group's unpredictability, it's a bit of a curve ball. Whereas on previous releases they've ranged in size from a quartet to a septet, this time they've cut themselves down to a simple piano trio. Other than that, it's business as usual. Bassist Moppa Elliott's original compositions are still named for towns in Pennsylvania (which this time all include colors in their names), ...
read moreMostly Other People Do the Killing: Paint
by Karl Ackermann
No sooner had Mostly Other People Do the Killing expanded to a septet with Loafer's Hollow (Hot Cup Records, 2017) than they shrink to their smallest formation to date with the trio release Paint. Founding member, bassist, and composer Moppa Elliott is joined by pianist Ron Stabinsky and drummer Kevin Shea. Trumpeter Peter Evans had departed the group before its 2015 Mauch Chunk album and now without Jon Irabagon's alto saxophone in the lineup, the sound takes a very different ...
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