1. (Late Night At The) Maple Leaf
2. (Proper) Gander
3. Wissions (Of Vu)
4. (Sifting Through The) African Diaspora
5. Over (Compensatin')		          play
6. (Smell My) Special Ingredients
7. (I Have) Super Strength
8. (Who Ate The) Layer Cake   	play
9. Thanks! (Again)
10. (Put On Your) Big People Shoes
11. (Here Come) The Brown Police

Personnel: 
Stanton Moore: drums; 
Will Bernard: guitar; 
Robert Walter: Hammond B3, piano, toy piano and clavinet; 
Michael Skinkus: shakere (6); 
Robert Wilmott Walter: vocals (7).

When New Orleans native son Stanton Moore settles down behind his drum kit, what's sure to follow is enough electrifying energy and raw power to rebuild The Crescent City all by its own bad self.

Moore's rocking and rolling drums are pushed upfront in the mix, but they don't drown out Will Bernard's guitar and Robert Walter's keyboards. This trio is very much a democracy and there's plenty of room for each musician to go off on his own, while still staying within the framework of the band. Nothing here is meant to be taken too seriously, as Emphasis! (On Parenthesis) is all about the grooving and jamming. The real difference between "(Put On Your) Big People Shoes" and "Proper (Gander)" may be nothing more than how much longer or shorter one song is, compared to the other.

Walter's deliciously bent toy piano on the loopy "Wissions (of Vu)" and Moore's funky timekeeping sound as thought they were written for an over-the-top Quentin Tarantino flick. "(Sifting Through the) African Diaspora" features a reverberating bass line that will have you searching the liner notes for the musician, but it's only Walter working the bass pedals on the Hammond B3 to perfection. "(Who Ate the) Layer Cake?" is straight-up, Jeff Beck-ish dirty rock n' roll complete with guitar riffs and thundering drum rolls. "Proper (Gander)" allows Bernard to go off on some high-flying solos as Moore anchors it all, bashing the hell out of his drums. All that's missing is a shaggy, long-haired blond lead singer (which isn't all bad). Moore can change up from funk to rock and back to jazz seamlessly, and seems equally at home with any genre he chooses.

The problem for any critic with an album like Emphasis! (On Parenthesis) is they risk exposing the reader to paralysis by analysis. This isn't the kind of album you have to think about too much. Moore, Bernard and Walter are clearly having a good time and they want you to as well. This lean, mean and sassy album is meant to be played and enjoyed, not pondered. ---Jeff Winbush

Drummer, composer and bandleader Stanton Moore has a well-deserved reputation for diversity. Besides being a founding member of New Orleans powerhouse jazz-funkmaster Galactic, he's played with Corrosion of Conformity, jammed with other traditional New Orleans R&B and jazz groups, and issued three fine albums as leader. On Emphasis! On Parenthesis, Moore is playing with guitarist Will Bernard and keyboardist Robert Walter, a pair of top-flight collaborators he's worked with in various settings in the past -- in particular on his third album simply called III. Of course the trio isn't new to Moore by any stretch. He also records with Skerik and guitarist Charlie Hunter under the Garage a Trois moniker.

The album's 11 tracks all contain titles with parenthetical statements -- it is an acknowledgement of the gentle ribbing from his Galactic bandmates that he slips parentheses into the name of almost every tune he writes. In some ways the music reflects this; each of these tunes has extensions in it, where the riff or groove starts and gets grafted onto continually with other musical statements, transforming the original vamp, groove, or riff into a more complex and varied composition. This is possible because of the incredible balance in this group. The trio setting doesn't provide the same problems as a quartet or quintet, but it also doesn't provide the safety net. Certainly Moore's breakbeat crazy, full-force kit work is up in the mix as it should be for such a rhythmically complex groove record. He's certainly the bandleader and he composed the tunes, but this isn't a showcase for his drumming. Bernard and Walter are stellar partners. Bernard is one of the most well-respected guitarists among musicians, but he's a low profile cat who is almost unknown to all guitar freaks. Walter's profile is lower still. It makes them perfect for a date like this where everybody shines all the time.

Take the funky New Orleans strut-funk that is "(Late Night at The) Maple Leaf." The cut was developed from Moore's basslines out of a jam he and Walter played with Meters' bassist George Porter. Some chunky yet slinky B-3 chords by Walter dictate its opening groove, followed by funky guitar chords in backbeat driven by a 5/8 stuttering break tempo set by Moore. It is reminiscent of the Meters but layers interlocking step grooves into odd codas, middle fours, and turnarounds. A boogie-woogie piano is layered on top of a bassline played by Walter on the clavinet and morphs itself into a smoking bluesy solo (made up almost entirely of chord runs) before Bernard moves his knotty, jazzed-up guitar lines dead center for a break. "(Proper) Gander" is almost pure voodoo funk propelled by nasty chords and tom-tom rim shots that get turned into a drunken swaggering steamy groove by Bernard's twinned guitar lines.

Spy flick funk is what drives "(Wissions Of) Vu," propelled by a clavinet à la Herbie Hancock's Headhunters and an off-kilter toy piano. Bernard plays his best John Barry styled-film guitar line, and Moore makes the whole thing choogle. The most overtly jazz thing here is the following fourth cut "(Sifting Through The) African Diaspora." There are some jagged hard bop lines juxtaposed against funky breaks, fluid harmonic shifts and changes, and some stellar organ and guitar work moving tonal palettes through a rainbow of shades and colors. Working through a series of stretched minors and sevenths, this cut never loses its swing even at its most start-and-stop, and then slips into serious John Patton murk terrain, digging through the blues and groove bags before moving out towards somewhere on the frontier. It's one of the finest things here and easily the most adventurous, going through so many shapes and shifts and turns that it's difficult to even remember where it began. Another standout is the choppy, late-night soulful "(Smell My) Special Ingredients," that slips Fela styled Afro-funk backbeats and rock dynamics à la the Jeff Beck Group into its construction. Despite this amalgam of styles and tonal colors, it swings like mad. "(Put On Your) Big People Shoes" is pure whomp funky! The snare shuffle here is pure rim-shot tough, and the blues angler in the 12-bar set-up is deceptive in the way it stretches time via Walter's gradations in the chord changes. In a little over 45 minutes, the listener is taken on a ride that's full of thrills and musical adventure to be sure, but more than this, it's a jag of pure pleasure that you can dance and fingerpop to. If you are still sitting on your behind (or aren't at least moving some part of your body in time), you are simply dead. Emphasis! On Parenthesis is another big winner in Moore's stellar catalog. ---Thom Jurek

download (mp3 @ kbs):

uploaded yandex 4shared mega mediafire solidfiles zalivalka cloudmailru oboom

back

01 – Tchfunkta
02 - Common Ground 
03 - Green Chimneys 
04 - Nalgas 
05 - Kooks On Parade 
06 - Blues For Ben 
07 - Witch Doctor 
08 - Boogaloo Boogie 
09 - Stanton Hits The Bottle 
10 - Nobodys Blues 
11 - Farmstead Antiques 
12 - Angel Nemali 
13 - Honey Island

Stanton Moore — drums, percussion
Charlie Hunter — eight-string guitar
Skerik — saxophonics, kookification
+
Matt Perrine — tuba
Brent Rose — tenor & soprano saxophones
Brian Seeger — guitar
Ben Ellman — tenor sax
Michael Ray — trumpet
Craig Klein — trombone

Recorded the week after Mardi Gras in February and March of 1998, All Kooked Out highlights a core band led by Galactic drummer Stanton Moore and featuring eight-string guitarist Charlie Hunter and Critters Buggin' saxophonist Skerik. Supplemented by an array of New Orleans musicians, including Brent Rose (tenor and soprano sax), Brian Seeger (guitar), Matt Perrine (tuba), Ben Ellman (tenor sax), and former Sun Ra and Kool and the Gang trumpet player Michael Ray, the music has a lot of space and light in it, despite the sleeve's claims towards heaviness. Most of this can be attributed to Hunter's unique guitar style. His guitar, which features three bass strings and five regular guitar strings, is run through a good amount of reverb, making him sound like fusion guitarist John Scofield run through a Leslie rotating cabinet. Moore's rhythmic sensibility is best demonstrated on "Stanton Hits the Bottle," on which he plays percussion on a resonant sounding glass bottle, skipping on top of the groove with ease. The music is enjoyable, but would probably do better in the club setting in which it was conceived. ---Jesse Jarnow, Rovi

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

uploaded yandex 4shared mega mediafire solidfiles zalivalka cloudmailru oboom

back

 1.  “Tang the Hump"
 2.  "Fallin' Off"
 3.   "Let's Go"
 4.   "Launcho Diablo"	play
 5.   "Prairie Sunset"
 6.   "Things Fall Apart"
 7.   "Amy's Lament"		play
 8.   "Magnolia Triangle"
 9.   "Hunch"
10.  "Bottoms Up"
11.   "For the Record"
12.   "Organized Chaos"

Personnel: 
Stanton Moore: drums; 
Karl Denson: saxophone, flute; 
Skerik: saxophone; 
Chris Wood: bass; 
Brian Seeger: guitar.

Drummer, Stanton Moore extends the lineage of the great New Orleans reared drummers along with a deeply personalized and often rip-roaring viewpoint on his latest solo effort. A founding member of the so-called, "steamroller funk" outfit known as Galactic, the drummer and his notable musical associates endow the listener with a downright riotous series of grooves on this upbeat production. Simply put, Moore and bassist, Chris Wood (Medeski, Martin & Wood) display magical synergistic qualities throughout these jazzed-up, and thoroughly funkified rhythmic endeavors. Wood's booming acoustic lines and Moore's heavy handed straight four beat, on the opener "Tang the Hump," provides the listener with a harbinger of what looms ahead. Perhaps a prelude that is akin to a - calm before the storm - type vibe as the band segues into a sprightly jazz vamp, featuring saxophonists, Karl Denson, and Skerik's tuneful choruses.

The musicians render a Nawlins second line motif amid a few spurts of Eastern modalities during the rousing piece titled, "Fallin' Off the Floor." Highlights abound on "Things Fall Apart," as the rhythm section accelerates the proceedings into overdrive in support of electric guitarist, Brian Seeger's psychedelic (and playfully neurotic) lead lines. While tenor saxophonist, Skerik must have blown a hole through the studio roof on the trio-based number, "Magnolia Triangle." Overall, Moore's funk-drenched formulas reap colossal dividends! ---Glenn Astarita. allaboutjazz.com

Flyin' the Koop is the second solo album by New Orleans drummer Stanton Moore. The album includes funk, rock and jazz. Moore's line-up for Flyin' the Koop is in part a combination of musicians with whom he played at a "SuperJam" at Tipitina's during Jazz Fest 2000.

Moore's concept for the album "was to have two saxes, bass and drums, and to improvise over loops..." building the tracks upon rhythm. Melodies then developed through improvisation and composition by the saxophonists. Also, some tracks were written before the session. "Amy's Lament" was a Moore instrumental that he envisioned as a contemporary twist on a New Orleans dirge; it is named after Moore's first wife.[citation needed] "Magnolia Triangle" is a classic New Orleans composition in 5/4 meter from famed New Orleans drummer and composer James Black. "Let's Go" and "Hunch" are both contributions from the writing team of Charlie Dennard and Brian Seeger who were half of Moore's working band at the time, "Moore and More". The track "For the Record" is a composition by Seeger written specifically for this session.

On Flyin' the Koop Moore played vintage Gretsch drums with an 18-inch bass drum. Wood plays upright and Hoffner bass. Many fans speculated at first that the name of the solo album implied that Moore could be leaving his band Galactic. Moore explained that the metaphor which regarded "freeing yourself from the limitations" of music styles was combined with the location of the recording studio being on a former chicken farm in Cotati, California.

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

uploaded yandex 4shared mega mediafire solidfiles zalivalka cloudmailru oboom

back

01. Squash Blossom
02. Pie-Eyed Manc
03. Pot Licker
04. Root Cellar
05. Keep on Gwine
06. Neeps and Tatties
07. Up To Here
08. Knocker
09. Shiftless
10. Cleanse This House
11. Aletta
12. He Stopped Loving Her Today

Stanton Moore – drums
Robert Walter - Hammond B3 organ, piano
Will Bernard -  guitar

Groove Alchemy is not only the perfect title for Stanton Moore's album, it effectively sums up the unique means by which he makes music. The rhythm he conjures up morphs into melody then back again in such as remarkable natural fashion, it almost (but not quite) defies description.

It's voodoo of some kind the way Moore hammers out the beat of the first two tracks, "Squash Blossom" and "Pie Eyed Manc," only to have them shape-shift into the fluid motion of Robert Walter 's organ and the quick flick of Will Bernard's guitar. Perhaps more so than its predecessor, Emphasis! (on parenthesis)(Telarc, 2008), this CD illustrates how the lightning tradeoffs between the trio are essential in keeping the sound vibrant no matter what turns they take.

"Pot Licker" moves in more insinuating fashion as the threesome bob and weave around each other, suggesting more often than they come right out and play, except on the refrain. It's an object lesson in the expert use of the tension and release dynamic, at the heart of the best funk, as much as on "Root Cellar." Moore lays down the second-line pattern while Walter mirrors it on piano only to have Bernard utilize a deft bottleneck touch that allows him to dodge in and out between his two compatriots.

Breaks like the one Stanton Moore takes on that track give some practical insight into how fascinating it is to hear him play. He can move around his drum kit to delineate a melody line with both nuance and gusto, which is also why he has the innate ability to dig into the proverbial pocket as deeply as he does on "Keep on Gwine," thus allowing Walter and Bernard to wind out their respective throttles, resting assured the bottom is stable and firm.

Traditional funk never falls flat in the hands of these three, as the somewhat conventional structure of that tune suggests. On "Shiftless" and in the more syncopated form of "Knocker," the effect is similarly potent. Moore, Walter and Bernard have worked together in various lineups, including this three-piece ensemble, for a number of years, which fosters interaction that simply can't be composed and arranged past a certain point. Split-second turnarounds and pickups such as theirs are the result of refined intuition.

The main man's fondness for hard rock comes to the fore on "Cleanse This House," as Bernard and Walter join in with their own atonal afterthoughts that segue neatly into the more atmospheric "Aletta," a sequence that reaffirms no two cuts on this album sound exactly alike. It makes sense then to see this album in the context of of a larger project (including a DVD and a book) that serves to instruct on the technique and the history of Stanton Moore's approach to collaboration.

Groove Alchemy, however, is anything but academic and should serve equally well as inspiration to dance as to coolly observe the niceties of rhythm. ---Doug Colette, allaboutjazz.com

download: uploaded yandex 4shared mediafire solidfiles mega zalivalka cloudmailru filecloudio anonfiles oboom

back