perfidy

Mocean Worker: Enter The MoWo (2004: Hyena Records)

Once upon a time, I went to hear a DJ called Mocean Worker (rhymes with “ocean”) spin at one of the many tiny drink-and-DJ clubs that dot the lower Manhattan landscape. I had already developed a powerful aversion to club music, since in New York you can’t buy a shirt, eat a meal, or even walk down the sidewalk without the insistent BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM of this season’s hot sub-sub-subvariety invading your space. Needless to say, I was present that night out of obligation (I worked for his label at the time (and he’s a great guy)), not because I was eager to drop $7 a drink to hear yet another so-called DJ spinning yet another set of big-beat bore.

The evening started predictably enough, with Mocean Worker interlacing house music of the not-offensive variety with his own Moog-thickened creations. Then things got weird. Some very interesting non-dance tracks poked through the haze of 808 beats, and I’m quite certain the theme from “Banana Splits” got worked in somehow. The intrusions left some people fairly nonplussed, since it is in fact rather jarring to jump directly from Dzihan and Kamien to, say, “The Dukes of Hazzard,” but for my part I left convinced this Mocean Worker guy was a genius, though perhaps a genius handcuffed by the conventions of the dance genre.

Mocean Worker is Adam Dorn, the son of veteran producer Joel Dorn who produced Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” as well as innumerable worthy albums for Atlantic and others, notably The Allman Brothers, David “Fathead” Newman, Dr. John, Charles Mingus, Bette Midler, and Lou Rawls. Adam, himself a producer and jazz bassist was raised in the studio, soaking up the music being made around him and-- it would seem-- taking it all right in.

Dorn is in a uniquely lucky position in a couple respects. He is a graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, an institution that is well known for producing superhuman musicians who can play anything at the drop of a hat. Moreover, he and his father ran the now-defunct labels 32 Jazz and Label M, which were dedicated to reissuing the best lost classics that Joel Dorn produced over the years, mostly jazz- and funk-inflected albums that could be licensed for a song from the original labels. (If you ever find any releases from these labels in used bins-- do not pass them up.) This excellent and diverse catalog under family control gives Dorn the rare ability to use a vast number of samples for very little money. It also doesn’t hurt that his current label, Hyena, is also a Joel Dorn project.
Dorn’s first two albums as Mocean Worker, 1998’s Home Movies From The Brain Forest (Conscience) and 1999’s Mixed Emotional Features (Palm Pictures) have been unfairly dubbed drum-and-bass. Though dark and complex, even then his meticulously produced tracks and use of jazz samples suggested greater depths to his ambitions-- what drum-and-bass producer would build a track solely out of Ellington, Strayhorn and Basie samples, as Dorn did on Mixed Emotional Features’ “Counts, Dukes, and Strays? Whatever else you might say about them, Dorn’s first two albums pointed to a promising career as a maker of interesting and intelligent dance albums.

Which is what made his third album, 2000’s Aural and Hearty, (Palm Pictures) so puzzling. Abandoning the subtlety he had previously displayed, Dorn let his goofy side run wild on big, obvious house-inflected sounds. Although a couple tracks stood out, the album was mostly a series of unsuccessful genre experiments. My best guess at the time was that Dorn was chafing at the limitations of dance and was trying to-- as the opening bit on Aural and Hearty had it-- “Lighten Up, Francis.” A little while later, when I heard Dorn spin in that New York bar, it became clear that that Dorn not only found orthodox dance music limiting, but boring as well.

It has taken four records for Mocean Worker to figure out how to make Mocean Worker, that slap-happy goodtime asshole who drops “The Banana Splits” in the middle of an acid-house set, play nice with Mocean Worker, devotee of profoundly beautiful, achingly soulful electronic dance music.

On the new Enter the MoWo (2004, Hyena) everything finally comes together. This time Dorn moves smoothly from strength to strength, hopping genres from hot jazz to ambient with total assurance. MoWo features wall to wall funky beats, chewy basslines (sampled and otherwise), dense, aurally complete productions, and guest performances from an all-star cast including Bill Frisell, Donald Byrd, David “Fathead” Newman, and Sex Mob members Briggan Krauss and Steve Bernstein. In equal measures goofy, funky, deep, and beautiful, this is the first truly complete Mocean Worker album.

It has been a while since I have heard such a fun record. Music geeks like me can get off on tracks like “Shamma Lamma Ding Dong,” where Dorn pits a sampled flute performance from the late Rahsaan Roland Kirk against the very alive flute of Franck Gauthier of the French group Rinôçérôse. But non-jazz heads who don’t (or don’t care to) get the joke, can simply enjoy the infectious beat, laid back feel, and punchy interplay between flautists. This kind of lighthearted invention is all over the record. “Right Now” marries a Hot Club of Paris style swing trumpet lead to a percolating electric piano groove. On a few cuts, like the spooky “Only The Shadow Knows” and “Move,” Dorn updates the spy-music genre with sly samples and chewy basslines. The energetic workouts are balanced by beautiful atmospheric pieces, notably Shivaree singer Ambrosia Parsley’s beautiful vocals on the stark “I’ll Take the Woods,” and “Blackbird,” which updates a Nina Simone vocal outtake from 1986 with muted electronic accompaniments.

Not everything works perfectly. In particular, two of the least structured tracks-- “Salted Fatback” featuring a wasted and perfunctory performance by guitar legend Bill Frisell, and the chill-out room cut “Float”—go on for several minutes too long. But, at a lean twelve tracks in 49 minutes, any weak spots are past before you can get tired of them hanging around.

Dance music is a ghetto and jazz is on perpetual life support. Nevertheless, Enter The Mowo is a meaty, beaty, big and bouncy reinvention of the two, without any of the precious fustiness of the long-dead acid jazz movement or the forced cheer of Guru’s Jazzamatazz records. Nice work, Adam. But how you gonna top yourself next time?

www.moceanworker.com
www.hyenarecords.com

For a good idea of where Dorn is coming from at the moment with this Mocean Worker thing, I urge you to check out the affable, goofy [url= video to “Chick A Boom Boom Boom” see if you can figure out what’s up with the gorilla suit.

Also posted to blogcritics.org. Visit blogcritics for all your media and news punditry needs.

[wik] GeekLethal writes via email,

J, This no comments business is irritating, if necessary. Just read your review of Mocean Worker. Never heard of him. Very helpful for you to include a glimpse at his CV. And anything with nods to both Bill Frisell (who I am just beginning to explore) and Roland Kirk (who I will never presume to understand) on the same record must be worthwhile.

Saw Bill Frisell on a show one morning, I believe he was solo and with a trio. Anyway, they spoke to him at some length. The guy would ask fairlyspecific and intelligent questions, and Bill would respond to all of them in a rolling semi-whisper something like this:

"Well, it's really about....communication is what it's about...because... sometimes it's about...[inaudible]...then that's why the trio [inaudible]...but it's always difficult...to reach everybody...sometimes I just have to communicate with music because I can't with words."

Hey, no shit? Well, good for the rest of us I say, Bill.