Mosh For Lovers

Tracklist

Album details

Press reviews

CHOC Jazzman

"Fresh Sound Saxophonist Seamus Blake asks the musical question: why can't jazz musicians be rock stars too? His band Bloomdaddies delivers the answer: The square root of pi cannot be written with much certainty.

In other words, rocks stars are rock stars because of the swagger factor, not (in most cases) musicianship. The Bloomdaddies have plenty of swank AND the musical credentials to back up their braggadocio.

Saxophonists Seamus Blake and Chris Cheek both have impressive discographies. Cheek having recorded with Paul Motians Electric Bebop Band and Blake with Victor Lewis, Kevin Hays and The Mingus Big Bad. This past year Seamus Blake won the prestigious Thelonious Monk saxophone competition, the same one that launched the career of Joshua Redman. But Blake, like Cheek seems to be moving away from a career based in the culture of traditional jazz. The Bloomdaddies (Blake, bassist Jesse Murphy, and drummer Jorge Rossy) began in 1993 as an acoustic trio. They later added Cheek and a second and third drummer Dan Rieser and Tony Mason.

Mosh For Lovers follows up their 1996 self-titled disc for Criss Cross. That first record set the tone for where the Daddies are coming from. Covering 'Sing, Sing, Sing' one can span the decades from the swing era till the 21st century with the cliché image of parents being shocked!, shocked! by this dangerous music.

This latest effort takes the posturing even further with well, more attitude. Loaded with effects, pitch shifters, reverb, flangers, and wah-wah pedals the music starts at late Zappa and passes through Parliament-Funkadelic, psychedelic, funk, electric boogie, hip-hop, and pop. The band takes a stab at a radio play with 'In The Ground.' Bassist Jesse Murphy's vocals could pass for a mellow Peter Gabriel.

Mostly this record is about stretching the possibilities of bar band jazz. Reclaiming the music from the suit-and-tie scene for sweaty dancing music. Their 'One Note Mosh' revives the punk rockabilly sound and 'Moosenstein' culls the wah-wah of a blaxploitation film.

Bloomdaddies are a part of a growing faction that says jazz can be fun sticky music once again. Their bravado is real as any rock band, and they can play."

Mark Corroto -All About Jazz
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(****4 / 5)

"Con tres baterías, un bajo eléctrico que es también vocalista, más dos saxos tenores que se entrelazan entre sí y con el eco de sus propias alteraciones electrónicas, The Bloomdaddies es un bueno ejemplo de grupo dispuesto a transgredir géneros. Son músicos fraguados en el jazz, pero su mentalidad es más propia de una generación post punk que absorbe sin complejos el hip hop, el pop contemporáneo, la psicodélica y el funk para hacer carrera más allá de los límites convencionales de la improvisación jazzística. Esta es la producción más cuidada de cuantas el grupo ha realizado, y la que por consiguiente nos da la medida de unas posibilidades que prometen desarrollos de difícil predicción. No es música de grandes ambiciones ni de estructuras complejas, pero más allá del evidente deseo de festejar, se percibe una inquietud de investigación, de exploración entre terrenos permeables."

Manuel I. Ferrand -Más Jazz (Invierno 2002)
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"The Bloomdaddies are essentially a rock band, with tenor saxophonists Seamus Blake and Chris Cheek in the role of dueling lead guitars. That's meant almost literally -- the horns are put through the wringer of effects until, on tracks like "Boogins" and "One Note Mosh," they start sounding like Les Pauls grinding out power chords and wailing leads. Blake and Cheek also delve heavily into the kinds of wah and phase effects once explored by the great Eddie Harris. On mellower tracks like "Some Small Ecstasy" they can even bring to mind the ethereal, intersecting guitar lines of Television's Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd. The band has a funkmeister of a bassist in Jessie Murphy, who also contributes more-than-capable vocals on two tracks. And there are three -- count them, three -- drummers (Tony Mason, Dan Rieser, and Jorge Rossy), which you'd think would be bombastic but isn't at all. In part, this sophomore release is part of a wider phenomenon, as more and more young jazz musicians engage rock and funk on a legitimately creative level. Seamus Blake may have won the 2002 Monk competition, but that's not all there is to him and his musicianship."

David R. Adler -All Music Guide