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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Industrial Jazz

May 20, 2008 by Doug Ramsey

I’m not sure why it took me so long to find out about the Industrial Jazz Group, but life is full of unintentionally delayed gratification. I’m also not sure why it took me so long to come across Amedei chocolate, Norma Winstone, the writing of James Salter or the psychic rewards of gardening.

Durkin 2.jpgIn any case, Andrew Durkin–the Industrial Jazz Group’s leader, pianist and composer– intrigued me with an e-mail message asking if I would be willing to hear a CD by his band. So that the disc would not disappear into an impenetrable landscape of stacks of unbidden review copies, never to be seen again, I asked him to send it with a note reminding me to listen right away. What turns out to be the fifth CD by this whimsical, musical, fifteen-piece band showed up with the reminder. I listened right away, give or take a few days. Within moments, I was grinning, then laughing, then shaking my head at the complexity of the music and the skill with which the IJG performed it.

The humor is both subtle and slapstick, the musicianship consistently impressive. The band’s comprehensive web site reflects the wackiness of the music but also practices modern marketing by linking to a company store offering T-shirts, mugs, a mouse pad, a thong and a one-piece baby garment. Maybe that’s the industrial aspect of the band.

On the site, Durkin writes that he doesn’t see the value of lists of influences but admits to being under the sway of Frank Zappa, Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus. Unopposed to lists, I will point out that he might also have mentioned Stravinsky, Archie Shepp, Spike Jones, Carla Bley, Raymond Scott, Satie, the AACM, Charles Ives and the Marx Brothers. The CD that arrived is called — don’t ask me why — LEEF. According to the nearly unreadable
LEEF.jpginformation on the CD envelope (cleverly printed in white on yellow) it was recorded “mostly live” in concert in Amsterdam. The singer, Jill Knapp, is excellent. I presume that it is she whom we see cavorting in the promotional video to which you will find a link on this page.

Fair warning: a couple of the tracks have language that is less shockingly foul than boringly and repetitively foul. It gives the kids a chance to talk dirty in public and doesn’t last long. (Perhaps I should have mentioned Lennie Bruce in that list of possible influences.)

But it’s the music that matters most. The music is good.

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Comments

  1. Matt Merewitz says

    May 22, 2008 at 12:45 pm

    I was very intrigued and impressed that you blogged about a group as new and underground as Andrew Durkin’s Industrial Jazz Group. For an older cat, you are pretty friggin’ hip man.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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