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foot firmly planted in the vocal jazz tradition, a background that makes
it all the more curious that they’re involved in an ensemble that so radically
breaks with that lineage.
“The star of New York Voices is New York Voices,” Kinhan said. “In
Moss, it’s more about the individual energy and the outgrowth is the collective
sound. By virtue of that, there’s more freedom to let it be whatever
it’s going to be from song to song. They cross-pollinate each other nicely.”
Perhaps the group’s wildest card is Bleckmann. It’s difficult to predict
the context in which he will appear, just that he will emerge, beautiful if
often incongruous, then appear to do impossible things before making his
tantalizing disappearance. On CD, he’s most recently released the gorgeously
dark At Night (Songlines) with Monder, and Las Vegas Rhapsody
and Berlin (Winter & Winter), collaborations with pianist Fumio Yasuda.
Though he’s constantly finding new contexts in which to weave his pliant,
clarion vocals, Bleckmann cringes at the thought of his projects being
called explorations. “Exploring always sounds like an experiment that
didn’t quite make it,” he said. “I just try to look for honesty. There’s no
difference to me between Las Vegas Rhapsody, Moss and a free improvisation.
I’m not putting on a different hat or a mask, I’m not changing my
persona to sing anything. The honesty and the love that I bring to the
material is just as deep.”
Even more daunting than commingling the members’ varying
approaches has been trying to coordinate their busy schedules. After several
months of developing their repertoire, Moss emerged with its first performance
at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan in April 2005.
“We forced ourselves to come out of the closet and put the show up
for other people to come and hear,” Kinhan said. “That was exciting
because we knew we liked it, but it was a mystery whether or not anybody
else was going to.”
Despite the success of that first show, it was a year before the group
would take the stage again, at New York’s Merkin Concert Hall, and
another before performing in Los Angeles. They managed to clear their
schedules long enough in August 2007 to record the CD, which was followed
by a four-city East Coast tour earlier this year that more than doubled
their gig total, although Souza’s recent move to Los Angeles necessitated
most of those shows being performed as a quartet.
The rarity of performances may contribute to the giddy exuberance that
the group displays live. “It’s still in the honeymoon phase,” Eldridge
laughed. “The business side, the touring side, all the elements of performing
live or having a career together haven’t gotten in the way of us enjoying
each other’s company.”
Bleckmann is even more direct. “It’s just a love fest,” he said. “We
love being with each other.”
“It’s a guilty pleasure,” Kinhan added, “because we’re fans of one
another. In a sense, that’s why we find ourselves together. The fact that we
found a way to make it work and then record is gravy, because our intention
was just to write, share and grow from one another’s ideas. When we
play live, we’re the luckiest people in the room.”
The group has evolved so naturally thus far, Eldridge said, that the
future is nearly impossible to predict. “It’s hard to say whether Moss will
continue to be this collection of people or whether it will be a revolving
door. Perhaps it can be something a little more open-ended, where people
come in and out and it’s a little different each time.”
“We all would love to perform more and hang more,” Souza said, “but
we’re also successful in our solo careers.”
“I’m mindful of how lucky we are,” Kinhan said. “Many people like
the idea of what we created and come up after shows to say, ‘I wish I
could be in Moss.’ I usually say to those people, ‘Create your own.’ All of
us need a group of people who we admire, that we can sit and have coffee
with and bounce ideas off of. Just figure out who the other people are who
you admire, call them up and ask them to start a club. That’s what we did:
We started a little coffee club that became a musical voice.” DB
September 2008 DOWNBEAT 37