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 THE splendor of the state of Pennsylvania is indisputable. Rolling hills give way to mountains, pastures, and cities from the Ohio border to the mighty Delaware Water Gap.  As in their previous release, Mostly Other People Do the Killing harvests its song titles from the poetic and profound names of villages and hamlets in this great state.

    Mostly Other People Do the Killing, or MOPDTK, is a quartet with the rare ability to think, act, create, and destroy as one consciousness.  Rather than settling into one style or historical period, MOPDTK fuses the entire spectrum of Jazz and the various forms of improvised music it has spawned into a single, seamless melange of Uber-Jass.  Their years of training at Oberlin, Juilliard, Berklee, Mannes, and the Manhattan School of Music behind them, the members of the quartet represent the end products of Jazz education: over-trained musicians influenced by the digital age of instant access. On their second album, Shamokin!!!, bandleader Moppa Elliott has penned nine compositions which highlight the playing of the individual members of the ensemble and the awesome power of the collective. 

    The band leader’s bass can be heard sparring with drummer Kevin Shea in the opening bars of the first number, Handsome Eddy, a relaxed bugaloo. Peter Evans begins his solo with a short, playful motive originating as an embellishment on the melody before careening through the chord changes with the agility of a nematode.  Jon Irabagon enters with a characteristically forceful theme which he develops for the majority of his solo, culminating in a broken-record climax of extraordinary power.

    The Hop Bottom Hop finds the quartet returning to the roots of jazz as the leader emulates the classic slap-style bass playing of Milt Hinton and Victor Wooten.  The relaxed tempo and simple harmonies of the opening sections give way to more harmonic and rhythmic complexity before Irabagon twists and bends his saxophone recalling Johnny Hodges, Booker Ervin, and the cries of an injured animal. Evans then smoothly transitions into a section that recalls the great work of the Bee Gees and ABBA finishing with the collective destruction of the repeated bridge.

    On the title track MOPDTK soars into the up-tempo realm of cutting contests and be-bop stylists.  Shea’s drums shift from Gene Krupa-esque tom-tom facility, to Shaggs-style freedom as the time ebbs and flows behind the two soloists.  Evans ends his solo triumphantly while Irabagon squeals like livestock at slaughter before returning to the tune.

    Dunkelbergers is a string of minor-key cliches modeled after the countless attempted sambas and bossa-novas of the 60’s. Kevin Shea acquits himself well on the vamps that flank the body of the tune and provides strong support throughout the take.  After taking a daringly melodic solo, Evans provides additional accompaniment for Irabagon’s smooth, probing saxophone stylings.

    The leader’s hometown provides the title for Factoryville, a tune that shifts between three connected thematic sections. The bandleader solos over a vamp supported harmonically by the horns before returning to the role of accompanist for a fierce exchange between trumpet and sax. The blues serves as the basis of all of jazz, but its force is especially strong in this one, much like Luke Skywalker.

    Lover is both a small town in Pennsylvania and an often played jazz standard. Typically performed as a ballad, the original composition has become widely used as a vehicle for up-tempo improvisation by extraordinarily facile and nimble soloists. Here, MOPDTK navigates both sides of this composition by gradually increasing the tempo from dirge to jack-hammer before the ensuing chaos leads us back to the ballad and the tempo reverses its course. The quartet seems to lose interest before finishing the melody which may be for the best.

    The blithe, ebullient Andover is a lilting jazz waltz with a soaring melody and colorful harmony. After channeling the spirit of Louis Armstrong in his opening phrase, Evans alternates between dog whistle shrieks, Buddy Bolden quotes, and coffee grinder tone. Irabagon is in top form on his Lenny Pickett meets Peter Brotzmann and Frankie Traumbauer solo which melds seamlessly into the closing statement of the theme.

    In addition to being the namesake of the MOPDTK’s fine trumpeter and renowned baritone saxophonist and collaborator Charlie, Evans City happens to be the town where Night of the Living Dead was filmed. This bucolic Western Pennsylvania/zombie massacre dichotomy is evoked by the intensely swinging melody of the tune itself. The horns exchange blows before the bandleader pays homage to the greatest achievement in Jazz: the bowed bass solo.

    Darkness and light also feature prominently in Baden, a composition that wavers between the two before settling into a driving propulsive vamp recalling Cedar Walton’s tenure with the Blakey band. Somehow seamlessly melding Najee and Zorn, Irabagon rides the swirling cesspool of rhythm that is the Shea/Elliott rhythm section. Evans’ powerful solo brings the tune to an ending prolonged by the band’s refusal to let any one member have the last word.

    The album closes with a rendition of the ubiquitous Gillespie standard, A Night in Tunisia. This twenty-one minute jazz orgy includes references to the majority of recorded sound of the last century. Shea opens by paying homage to Art Blakey himself with an unaccompanied drum solo quoting numerous masters of the trap set.  After a brief glimpse of the composition itself, Evans and Irabagon are given the opportunity to stretch their wings on epic cadenzas.

    As Nat Hentoff once said*, “Every once in a while an album comes along, and this is one of them, that is beyond what is currently fashionable at any given time...It has the freshness of real spontaneity.” Mostly Other People Do the Killing has created a Jazz-affirming album brimming with spontaneity and awash with originality, uniting the many divergent threads of Jazz to weave a virtuosic tapestry of swingfullness. One hundred years of Jazz history in every bite!!!
– LEONARDO FEATHERWEIGHT
*From liner notes to Lee Morgan’s The Gigolo, Blue Note BST 84212