Category: Jazz

Deconstructing jazz standards and original compositions, weaving in and out of styles erratically and often humorously, Mostly Other People Do the Killing (MOPDtK) is led by bassist and composer Moppa Elliot and features Peter Evans, trumpet, Jon Iragabon, saxophone and Kevin Shea, drums. “Bolstered by a youthful visceral intensity,” writes All About Jazz, “the mercurial quartet has a historically aware yet stylistically irreverent take on the jazz tradition.”
Mostly Other People Do the Killing formed in the fall of 2003 in New York City. Moppa Elliott met Peter Evans in 1998 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where both studied. Upon relocating to New York, Elliott met Jon Irabagon and Kevin Shea. Mostly Other People Do the Killing recorded its first eponymous album during the summer of 2004 and released it on Elliott’s Hot Cup label.
“There’s a bustling, ostentatious impiety in the music of Mostly Other People Do the Killing,” writes The New York Times.  “It’s a jazz quartet with a diligent grasp of history but an anarchic take on convention.”

Their most recent release, Forty Fort (Hot Cup), is their fourth. By 2009, they had been voted the winners of the DownBeat Critics’ Poll in the Rising Star Ensemble category, and Evans, Irabagon, and Elliott had been mentioned in their respective categories   Jon Irabagon won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone competition in 2008, while Peter Evans released his second solo trumpet album on Evan Parker’s psi label. The quartet made its first trip to Europe in May 2009 participating in the Moers Festival, Jazzores and Enjoy Jazz Festivals.
“While the music is thoroughly modern,” writes Cadence, “it references the heyday of New Orleans-style barn burners and several other eras. Evans and Irabagon…thread free passages cleverly into the traditional sounds of the earlier genres. Elliott adds the glue to keep the songs – all his compositions – in tight confinement. He lays down vibrant rhythms around which the horns jostle and cajole taking the pieces to riotous levels while maintaining reference points to earlier periods to depict the illustrious evolution of Jazz.”

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Chucho Valdés and the Afro-Cuban Messengers performed at the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall on Tuesday, October 19th.

Hailed as “one of the world’s greatest virtuosic pianists” by The New York Times, perennial Grammy Award winner Chucho Valdés has recorded over eighty CDs and performed with countless jazz masters. In his first US tour in eight years, he appeared at the FAC with the fabled Afro-Cuban Messengers.

Chucho’s music is deeply influenced by the African spritual rites that thrive to this day in Cuba. Chucho is himself a devotee of the Santeria pantheon: Chango, Babalu-Aye, and others. Many—if not most—of the vocals you’ll hear during a Chucho performance are in the Congolese Lucumí language, straight from Dahomey, Côte d’Ivoire, and elsewhere in west Africa. And in the midsts of these paens to African Orisha spirits you’re likely to hear snatches of Brahms and other classical composers. Chucho represents the main streams of influence in Cuban music: the African and the European, and his be-bop background is well attested in recordings with Dizzy Gillespie and others. He’s truly an eclectic musical treasure.

If you attended the show and want to hear more of Chucho’s fire-eating, classically-tinged technique, check out this amazing video. (Buried in this incandescently played Cuban son [a rural song form] is C.P.E. Bach’s Solfeggietto!) And this video of Chucho’s duet with his father Bebo playing a traditional Carnival tune titled “La Comparsa” is priceless.

Says All About Jazz, “he can [play] with the soft grace of Bill Evans and dazzle with the thunderous dexterity of Art Tatum.”

Legendary South African Trumpeter Hugh Masekela is an innovator in the world music and jazz scene and is an active performer, composer, producer and a defining force in the struggle for human rights in both Africa and around the world. If you are a child of the 60s, surely you remember his hit “Grazing in the Grass.”

“Hugh Masekela is a musician with a real soul. He has a genuine warm, charismatic, and simple way of building special relationships, both with his fellow musicians and with an audience” (London Jazz).

It’s the newest “hot spot” for jazz! Top of the Campus with spellbinding alto saxophone master Dave Pietro. Kick back and enjoy the scene as Pietro blends aspects of Brazilian, East Indian and American jazz music in a flavorful composition based upon the Chakra system. Noted band members include Rez Abbasi, guitars, sitar; Gary Versace, keys; Johannes Weidenmeuller, bass; Adam Cruz, drums; and Todd Isler, percussion.

Friday, October 3, 8:00 PM
Top of the Campus: Marriott Center
$15; Five College Students and Youth 17 and under $7

Go go go! How could you say no to something so wonderful such as a saxophonist! I know I can’t! See you there! Leave a comment if you’ve ever seen Dave Pietro in action or intend on going! It shall be a great show! Be a critic! Be a fan!

Let’s go globe-hopping!