This Weeks Short Takes
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“The NYC scenesters in The MK Groove
Orchestra are the pin up boys for where big band music is heading. The
band bops all over the map with brass knuckle brass and pornographic
funk. The first time I heard this band my socks kept rolling up and
down on their own.
The 10-odd piece band’s progressively
vintage sound is big and mind-blowingly cool. But hey, don’t fence them
in, as much as the classic big band wail of Goodman, Miller, Dorsey,
Brown, Shaw et al was the soundtrack for a generation, The MK Groove
Orchestra transcends timeline classification by goosing classic
lushness with a contempo haphazardry – all the while brazenly staring
down the apocalypse.
Often when jazz gets funked up it also
gets smoothed out. But you don’t have to worry about that here. MKGO
exhibits raw realism with frayed edges. The horns build a Berlin Wall
of jazzy sour to counter the groove’s sweet. And the electric guitar
shows up occasionally as if in the passing lane.
So despite the
backbreaking funk and their reverent big big band irreverence, MKGO is
still a jazz band at heart – a jazz band that can’t sit still, like an
8 – year old with a chocolate saxophone.” |
| -Frank De Blase, City Greater Rochester’s alternative newsweekly Music – March 23-29 2005 |