The Featherweight

With the brand new single 'Solid Air' (featuring Rosie Frater-Taylor), we announce the eponymous album from 'The Modern Jazz & Folk Ensemble', out on 24 May on Acid Jazz. It follows the release of two singles ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ (with Jacqui McShee) and the spellbinding version of Nick Drake’s ‘Parasite’ (featuring Kindelan).

Mostly Other People Do The Killing - Forty Fort (2010) {Hot Cup 091}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 417 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 143 Mb
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© 2010 Moppa Music / Hot Cup Records | Hot Cup 091
Jazz / Post-Bop / Avant-Garde Jazz

If Mostly Other People Do the Killing seems to be all about cleverness –mysterious band name, calling their fourth album Forty Fort, Impulse!-like cover art, pseudo-brainiac liner notes by "Leonardo Featherweight," a goof on jazz critic of renown Leonard Feather – well, there is that. Even those who profess to disdain jazz's avant-garde, into which school this certainly falls, may very well be sucked in by the sheer fun of it all. From the first track, "Pen Argyl," the quartet – Moppa Elliott (bass), Peter Evans (trumpet), Jon Irabagon (alto and tenor saxophone), and Kevin Shea (drums, elecronics) – makes it clear that as serious as they are, they're not all that serious.

Mostly Other People Do The Killing - Red Hot (2013) {Hot Cup 125}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 290 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 124 Mb
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© 2013 Moppa Music / Hot Cup Records | HC 125
Jazz / Post-Bop / Avant-Garde Jazz

I've been too busy enjoying the music of Mostly Other People Do the Killing (MOPTDK) to realize how controversial they've become. If you doubt their ability to rile the jazz world, all you have to do is post one of their videos on your Facebook page and wait for the ensuing kerfuffle to begin. The core band is comprised of four virtuoso instrumentalists, free-spirits who think nothing of hopping from honest-to-god punk rock, to free improv, to hard bop, to Americana, and back; sometimes in the space of a single track. Many of their original compositions, written by bassist Moppa Elliott, have the outward appearance of overlooked post-bop and bebop gems from the mid-1950s and early 60s.

Mostly Other People Do the Killing - Mauch Chunk (2015) {Hot Cup 153}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 316 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 108 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 25 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2015 Hot Cup Records | Hot Cup 153
Jazz / Post-Bop / Avant-Garde Jazz

Mostly Other People Do the Killing, the bad boys of jazz, don't quite turn in a straight ahead hard bop album with Mauch Chunk, but it's as close as they are likely to get. The new quartet has pianist Ron Stabinsky in place of longtime trumpeter Peter Evans—which seems to ground the group sound—and there's less obvious classic jazz deconstruction and quotation than normal. Saxophonist Jon Irabagon stays on alto for the entire session, something he has not done in awhile. The sort-of title tune "Mauch Chunk is Jim Thorpe" opens the program with a jaunty swing, and it stays in character…but Irabagon can't resist throwing in a quote from the standard "Misty" during his solo.