When we last left off with the saga of Moppa Elliot’s insurgent jazz band Mostly Other People Do the Killing, the group’s bassist, leader and composer had whittled down what was once as large as a septet to a trio with drummer Kevin Shea and pianist Rob Stabinsky for 2017’s Paint.
Eleven albums released over ten years was quite a tear for Elliott and he doubtless felt a hiatus was in order. During the last five years, Elliott tended to his three other ensembles, Stabinsky had since joined the influential cow punk band the Meat Puppets and Shea, well, he has his main gig Talibam! However, in 2019, Elliott wrote up a fresh batch of songs for a rebooted Mostly Other People Do the Killing but COVID put the reboot on hold.
Disasters Vol. 1 eventually did come out, in 2022. Continuing with the same Paint trio, Elliott kept with his theme of name-checking small towns from his native Pennsylvania, titling each of the eight originals from the name of PA bergs where a notable catastrophe had occurred. Musically, Elliott chose to devise very straightforward compositions and have his band deconstructed/reconstruct the songs, each most probably ending in a form that wasn’t anticipated when they started playing it.
But the most overt new aspect of this record compared to the prior Mostly Other People Do the Killing recordings is the introduction of electronic sounds. Stabinsky’s electronics effects call to mind Matthew Shipp’s early-2000s electro-acoustic experiments with FLAM, because it doesn’t usurp the piano’s role, it’s just placed alongside it. But in Stabinsky’s case, it’s done so in a deliberately scattered fashion. That fits in well with Elliot’s consistent mission to use his long-running ensemble to make turn traditional jazz on its head by objecting absurdity and carefree fun into it.
The first disaster is “Three Mile Island,” crashing into the scene announced with Stabinsky’s electro-noises swirling about until first Elliott and then Stabinsky’s piano reveals a rather unadorned melody. When Shea finally settles into something resembling timekeeping, it’s not just a melody, it’s a boogaloo. And just like that, the song evaporates.
Shea roughs up “Exeter” as well, seeming to swing with his bandmates kicking and screaming. It’s that tension that creates the sparks, along with the circuited space sounds rudely dropping in on what have otherwise might have been the most straightforward Mostly Other People Do the Killing song ever. Shea going rogue as the other two maintain a modicum of sanity turns out to be a common occurrence all over Disasters, much as it was for Paint.
Elliott and Stabinsky are once again playing the straight man for the blues-imbued “Marcus Hook” while Shea is aggressively pushing toward the outside. That strategy continues for “Wilkes-Barre,” with the bass and piano seemingly oblivious to the blizzard of drums whirling around them. An alternate rendition finds Stabinsky having a field day improvising on synthesizer.
You can almost hear Ben Folds singing over the rockin’ “Centralia,” and when Stabinsky stretches out, some echoes of McCoy Tyner ring out; on “Dimock” he convincingly emulates Oscar Peterson although Peterson probably never had to navigate through Shea’s relentless attack.
The return of Moppa Elliot’s Mostly Other People Do the Killing is – despite the five-year gap – only incrementally distinctive from their prior outing. But even now no one else in jazz compares to them. Audacity with the chops to make it work remains the basic recipe.
Disasters Vol. 1 is now out, and like all Mostly Other People Do the Killing records, comes from Elliot’s Hot Cup Records.
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