Mostly Other People Do The Killing

The Vortex, Dalston, London. 14/07/2011

New York’s MOPDTK have built up something of a cult following for their artful deconstructions of jazz history. The band’s distinctive album covers have included parodies of the sleeves of classic albums by Art Blakey, Ornette Coleman, Roy Haynes and Keith Jarrett and bassist/leader Moppa Elliott’s liner notes (one set was written under the alias Leonardo Featherweight, which gives you some idea of where the band is coming from) are often an entertainment in themselves. The music references the past but sounds thoroughly contemporary with an almost “punk” energy, the website of Elliott’s label, Hot Cup Records, describes MOPDTK as being a “bebop terrorist band”, which may or may not be tongue in cheek, but neatly sums the group up.

Elliott, trumpeter Peter Evans, saxophonist Jon Irabagon and drummer Kevin Shea are all remarkably versatile players and formidable instrumentalists. Evans and Irabagon both have successful solo careers that embrace everything from the avant garde to the mainstream whilst the prolific Shea co-leads the experimental Talibam! duo with synthesiser player Matt Mottel as well as appearing as a sideman on dozens of other projects.

MOPDTK came together in 2003, although Elliott and Evans had been playing together since 1998, and released their first album in 2004. Elliott’s liner notes on this eponymous début outlines his band’s philosophy perfectly; “I would rather make music the uses jazz’s identity crisis against it, piling as many nonsensical musical associations together as possible to create music that is aware of its own inconsistencies, ironies and contradictions and likes it that way”. Elliott makes it clear that he hates the idea of “jazz as repertory”-“I like my jazz with some dirt on it” he says before adding provocatively “Bring out the mud. Standing on the shoulders of giants makes it easier to kick them in the teeth”. Their music is in many ways a reaction to the modern jazz education system. MOPDTK have absorbed the lessons of the tradition, they have a genuine love and respect for it, but by God they’re going to bring something of their own to it. This process has been refined through their subsequent albums “Shamokin!!!” “This Is Our Moosic” “Forty Fort” (reviewed by Tim Owen elsewhere on this site) and the recent live double set “The Coimbra Concert”. This is music that goes beyond parody, it’s too freewheeling and improvisational for that, but instead falls into the bracket of “serious fun”, there were moments tonight at The Vortex when the audience laughed out loud, sometimes with the insider’s knowledge of a particular quote, at others at the sheer daring, irreverence and theatricality of the performances.

To play with the studied irreverence of MOPDTK requires enormous technical skill. Evans pushes the boundaries of the trumpet (but in this context at least without recource to electronics), Irabagon is outrageously gifted on tenor, alto and soprano saxophones but sticks to just the latter two here. When I spoke to him later he told me of his intention to record an album featuring each horn in turn, it’s currently two down one to go with the soprano album due next. Elliott is a powerful, rhythmically flexible bassist and a prolific and gifted composer as the group’s output shows whilst Shea is the wild card, a busy, fiery, highly theatrical performer with a unique approach to the drums.

Elliott names all his tunes after towns in his native state of Pennsylvania, some of the place names sound achingly poetic, others frankly preposterous-again a rather neat summation of the band’s music. First up was “Drainlick”, the opening tune on the “This Is Our Moosic” album and a parody on the “the obligatory Blue Note boogaloo” that seemed to open every album on the label from “The Sidewinder” onwards. A ferocious opening drum barrage from Shea led to a skewed hard bop theme with Evans and Irabagon adding a wilful dissonance to the familiar hard bop sound. Despite playing with almost zero amplification MOPDTK were LOUD in the context of the intimate Vortex, a tribute to the power of the horn players in particular. Evans is a flamboyant soloist and climaxed his solo with a series of bat like squeaks. His technical expertise allows him to produce almost impossible sounds from his instrument. In the first half at least Irabagon seemed to provide a more thoughtful foil, his probings on the alto less theatrical and more low key but still loaded with intelligence and information.

“Jim Thorpe” is a town renamed after an early American Football hero. Here Irabagon’s alto badgered and needled before Evans took over on pocket trumpet (or should that be piccolo trumpet as he’s credited on the first MOPDTK album - take your pick). Evans was to return to the instrument several times over the course of the evening and in fact produced many of his best solos on the smaller horn. Here he manipulated his sound by overblowing, vocalisations and by fluttering his hand over the mouth of the bell. His duet with Elliott at the bass was particularly impressive.

MOPDTK are fond of welding their fast moving, free-wheeling tunes together. A segue of “Round Bottom, Square Top” and “Two Boot Jacks” produced a torrent of notes from Irabagon’s alto over a steadily building groove featuring Elliott’s bowed bass. There was a hint of the Middle East in the saxophonist’s tone but this was quickly hi-jacked by the “twisted trad” sounds of the New Orleans flavoured “Two Boot Jacks”.

The opening of “Dunkelbergers” saw Irabagon playing a relatively straight-ahead theme while Evans’ trumpet buzzed around him like a swarm of angry wasps before the two horns interlocked to provide a pecking accompaniment to leader Elliott’s muscularly virtuoso bass solo.

Also from the “Shamokin!!!” album “Evans City” closed the first half with Peter of that ilk on trumpet and with Irabagon sliding a sly quote from the Sinatra classic “It Was A Very Good Year” into his alto solo.

All of MOPDTK’s qualities had been displayed in an energetic and highly entertaining first half but if anything the second set upped the ante with Irabagon playing much more forcefully throughout. The opening segue of “Heart’s Content” and “Hot Bottom Hop” saw evidence of this as Irabagon went head to head with Evens’ vocalised trumpet sounds. Meanwhile Elliott revealed that he doesn’t just restrict himself to plundering the jazz catalogue by appropriating the groove to Kool & The Gang’s disco hit “Celebration!”.

When Elliott announced the next piece, to great amusement, as being entitled “Can’t Tell Shit From Shohola” nobody had any idea that this was going to be the last tune of the set. The opening with Evans’ eerily muted trumpet and Irabagon’s fluttering solo over bowed bass represented some of the most atmospheric playing of the night and gave little hint of the fireworks to come. Naturally these were ignited by the irrepressible Shea whose kinetic hyper activity behind the kit had consistently fuelled the efforts of the soloists. When he embarked on a drum solo that recalled the theatrics of the great Han Bennink things really began to take off. Shea had already used the metal supporting columns that run from ceiling to floor in The Vortex as auxiliary percussion instruments and quasi theatrical props. Here his solo incorporated the partial deconstruction of his kit and was a bizarre cross between a drum feature and a piece of performance art. One of his trademarks is to use one of his cymbal stands as an auxiliary wind instrument and he eventually ended up sprawled across his kit in a state of mock exhaustion. There were several laugh out loud moments in this piece of percussive Dadaism and the audience absolutely loved it. Elliott, Evans and Irabagon, leaning against The Vortex piano laughed as loudly as the fans.

Shea had thrown down the gauntlet and as Irabagon, now on soprano, and Evans, who had switched to pocket trumpet picked out the theme to Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night In Tunisia” the pyrotechnics continued. Irabagon’s unaccompanied multiphonic soprano solo, an epic marathon of circular circular breathing was a feat of incredible technical skill and physical resourcefulness to rival John Coltrane or Dave Liebman. Evans’ pocket trumpet solo was no less impressive veering from gentle flute like tones to full on blazing with his fingers a blur over the valves as Shea pummelled what was left of his kit with his bare hands. 

This epic segue must have lasted half an hour or more and built to a boiling intensity, the band were clearly spent, plus their food had just been delivered, so there was to be no encore. This was a little disappointing at the time but with the benefit of hindsight probably a good thing. The band had played with a blistering sense of purpose all night and there would have been no topping this.

The bar was still open so Tim and I hung around for a while and chatted to both Elliott and Irabagon who were both very obliging and interesting guys. The Wednesday show had been recorded by Jazz On Three and should be transmitted shortly. It will be interesting to listen to this and compare the differences between the two nights.

MOPDTK are currently on a European tour (of which the two Vortex shows were the only British dates) which had included an appearance at the famous North Sea Jazz Festival. Tim tells me that the band’s blog states that they will be using keyboards and electronics on some of the later dates so already it seems as if they are moving on. Tim felt that there was an air of finality about tonight’s performance but strangely neither Elliott or Irabagon mentioned the use of these additional elements to us. The group are due to tour the UK again in 2012 so it will be interesting to see what developments have taken place. They’d be naturals for Cheltenham Jazz Festival so let’s just hope eh?

MOPDTK are a very clever band, I’m sure I didn’t recognise all the clues and quotes they threw in. Their individual skills are remarkable, particularly the two horn men, but it would be a valid criticism to say that they’re almost too knowing and clever and I’m sure there are some members of the jazz audience who would regard them as being just a bit too smart for their own good. That’s not necessarily a view I’d subscribe to, MOPDTK have carved themselves a unique niche and their sense of fun is palpable. They know they’re good, there’s nothing wrong with that, but they also like to take risks and each album appears to be a clear progression from the last. Individually and collectively I’m sure we’re going to hear a lot more from this refreshingly irreverent quartet. There’s something of the maverick spirit of Frank Zappa and Django Bates about these four young Americans.

blog comments powered by Disqus