Leaning towards the outside and over the top, these two bands experiment with jazz like a chemist, mixing different ingredients to see what is conjured up. Just make sure the flask doesn’t explode in your face!
Bassist/composer Mark Dresser leads an intuitive team of Rudresh Mahanthappa/as, Michael Dessen/tb, Denman Maroney/p and Tom Rainey-Michael Sarin/dr through a collection of searching originals. The mood here is free and free flowing, like winds blowing over sand and taking the pebbles to various directions, as in the complex “Not Withstanding” or angular “Aperitivo.” Mahanthappa’s alto is up to the task, catching the directions like a mast, and Dessen’s languid trombone agonizes in loneliness on a languid “Canales Rose” while he longs for companionship on the latin “ Rasaman.” Rumbling percussion creates still nights of a full moon on “Nourishments” making this a disc that lets your mind wander through the sounds like a daydream.
Mostly Other People Do The Killing, on the other hand, sounds like someone put Meade Lux Lewis and Cecil Taylor into a Waring Blender on material such as “King Of Prussia.” Coming across like the soundtrack for Fractured Flickers, MOPDTK combine avant garde with pre swing as on “The Shcikshinny Shimmy” or “Red Hot.” Bass and horns hiccup through “Turkey Foot Corner” while “seabrock, Power, Plank” or “Orange is the Name of the Town” sound like a Riverboat band that is about to sink over the port side of a leaking vessel. How far tongue in cheek can you go before you’re French kissing yourself?
Clean Feed Records
Hot Cup Records