Moppa Elliott’s Acceleration Due to Gravity Presents Jonesville. Nonet album to be released February 16, 2024 on Hot Cup Records
“It’s all so wild, so free, so … entertaining. You wonder why other bandleaders don’t seem to have this much fun all the time.” – Steve Greenlee, JazzTimes
“[Acceleration Due to Gravity] is music that has all the forward momentum of funk and hip-hop, but none of its predictability.” – Andy Hermann, DownBeat
Featuring: Moppa Elliott (DownBeat Critics Poll Rising Star Bassist, Composer, Arranger), Bobby Spellman (trumpet), Dave Taylor (trombone), Matt Nelson (alto saxophone), Stacy Dillard (tenor saxophone), Kyle Saulnier (baritone saxophone), Ava Mendoza (guitar), George Burton (piano), and Mike Pride (drums).
Hot Cup Records is proud to present Jonesville, the second release by the nonet Acceleration Due to Gravity. Jonesville features four new compositions by bassist/composer Moppa Elliott as well as performances of three early pieces by the legendary bassist and composer Sam Jones on the occasion of his centennial year. Each of Elliott’s compositions is inspired by the music of Sam Jones and named after a town in Pennsylvania, as usual.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Elliott created blindfold tests for a small circle of musicians and friends which led to completing his collection of all the recordings made by Sam Jones during his illustrious and long career. For the entirety of 2024, Elliott will host a weekly radio broadcast on WAYO in Rochester, NY where he will play music from each of Sam Jones’ recordings in roughly chronological order, interspersed with commentary and context.
Elliott’s original compositions, as performed by ADTG, are based loops that undergo transformation during each repetition and are staggered against each other. Each tune is made up of a handful of musical phrases (which in other circumstances could be samples) that loop and repeat, but never in the same way due to both written variations and the spontaneous improvisations of the band members. This allows each piece to retain both a unique sound world and forward momentum, constantly surprising the listener, and often, the band.
Elliott takes as a model the music of The Wu-Tang Clan, The Roots, Run the Jewels, DJ Premiere and other hip-hop artists who create song forms that are vehicles for multiple soloists and do not emphasize a central “hook” or refrain. Each of Elliott’s tunes has three solo sections built into it, and no recurring melodic chorus in order to more clearly emphasize the central role of the improvised solo.
Choice, a composition by Sam Jones, opens the album with the sound of Stacy Dillard’s tenor saxophone trading solo sections with alto saxophonist, Matt Nelson. Both employ a vast array of extended techniques, culminating in their exchange of flutter-tongued notes. Kyle Saulnier takes over on baritone saxophone and rips through the form until he is joined by the guitar of Ava Mendoza. The final solo section features the peerless Dave Taylor on bass trombone trading with the trumpet of Bobby Spellman. Both brass players get brief solo breaks at the end of the tune.
Elliott’s electric bass intones the first three notes of Delaware Water Gap before the beat drops and Taylor takes over on tenor trombone with a plunger mute. Nelson solos second in typically aggressive fashion, utilizing the entire range of the alto saxophone and alternating between jazz vocabulary and piercing shrieks and runs. Possibly encouraged by Nelson’s explorations of the horn, Dillard takes a turn evoking the honking tenor players of the mid 20th century with altissimo trills and wide vibrato before getting the last word with a curt trill.
Pianist George Burton opens Miami Drag, another Sam Jones composition from his days playing jump blues on the Chitlin’ Circuit. Burton’s opening vamp is compelling enough to sound like a written part (it isn’t) before breaking off into flurries of upper-register runs. Taylor moves back to the bass trombone and employs the plunger mute once again before being joined by Mendoza’s guitar, distorted in historically inappropriate fashion. She joins Dillard at the end of his solo before closing out the tune.
Unity, another of Elliott’s compositions inspired by the music of Sam Jones, opens with a torrent of notes by Dillard. Mendoza and Spellman trade four-bar phrases in the second solo section and come to mimic each other quite convincingly. Burton takes the final solo and attacks the keys in his familiar way, punctuating several ensemble sections with heavy block chords.
Spellman plays a lead-in to Cedar Run, an Elliott original with an octave-spanning bass groove and more extended harmonies and key changes for each soloist. Spellman’s solo leads into Burton’s over the interjections of drummer, Mike Pride and the stop-time sections by the band. Saulnier, modifying the sound of his baritone saxophone with electronic effects, enters, guns blazing, and relentlessly builds energy to the end of the piece.
Sam Jones’ Stack of Dollars is one of his first compositions to be recorded by multiple artists and become a “Standard.” Joining that list of cover versions is Acceleration Due to Gravity. Nelson states the opening melody only to abruptly depart for the upper reaches of the audible frequency spectrum in his opening statement. Spellman takes a turn, beginning with some lip trills before firing flurries of notes over the shifting rhythms of the band. Elliott’s arrangement has three distinct rhythmic sections that rotate making each solo a different combination of these sections. Mendoza takes the third solo and alternates between chromatic single-lines and dissonant chords.
Muted slide trumpet and trombone open Elliott’s Jonesville with a figure that anchors the entire composition with a heavy, pulsing groove that is tonally ambiguous. Mendoza takes the first solo, building towards the entrance of Nelson whose solo sounds as though a creature is slowly climbing out of a tar pit and emerging triumphantly. Saulnier and Taylor take over, sparring as the groove of Elliott, Pride, and the rest of the ensemble slowly becomes more and more sparse leading up to the final unison chord that ends the composition.
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© Peter Gannushkin and Nathan Kuruna
Dave Taylor (trombone) is the most recorded bass trombonist in history, and on this recording he expands his arsenal to include the tenor trombone and many custom-made mutes. He has played and recorded with Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and Mostly Other People Do the Killing, to name a few.
Matt Nelson (alto saxophone) is best known for his work with tUnE yArDs, Battle Trance, and Elder Ones as well as for his solo performances. Elliott and Nelson met at Oberlin before both relocated to New York and performed together with the New York Trumpet Ensemble, Peter Evans, and many more.
Stacy Dillard (tenor sax) is a fixture on the Long Island City jazz scene where he and Elliott have been crossing paths for over 20 years. He has performed with Norman Simmons (an arranger and pianist near and dear to Elliott’s heart), Frank Lacy, The Mingus Big Band, and countless others.
Kyle Saulnier (baritone saxophone) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist who has led The Awakening Orchestra for many years and performs on woodwinds, double-bass, electric bass, and many other instruments. For over a decade, Kyle co-led the band “alice.” with Elliott on bass, before relocating to Vermont.
Ava Mendoza (guitar) is originally from the Bay area in California and moved to New York in 2013 shortly after sharing the stage at the Moers Festival in Germany with “Mostly Other People Do the Killing.” Mendoza’s band “Unnatural Ways” has been acclaimed by critics for years and she is a member of Jon Irabagon’s “I Don’t Hear Nothin’ but the Blues.”
George Burton (piano) has toured, recorded, and performed with the Sun Ra Arkestra, Odeon Pope. Wallace Roney, and many others. He and Elliott are both alumni and former instructors at the now defunct Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts where they met in 2000 and returned for many summers as instructors and residential advisors.
Mike Pride (drums) leads many of his own ensembles, most recently “I Hate Work” and toured extensively with Amy Schumer performing with Jason Stein’s trio, “Locksmith Isidore.” He has performed and recorded with Anthony Braxton, Japanese noise band Boredoms, and Matana Roberts, among many others.
Bassist Moppa Elliott teaches music at Information Technology High School in Long Island City, NY. He also produces and releases albums on Hot Cup Records, performs as principal bassist of the Litha Symphony Orchestra, and collaborates with a wide variety of artists in NYC including Heroes of Toolik, Bash the Trash, the New Conductor’s Orchestra.