Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Sex Mob: Cultural Capital

20

Sex Mob: Cultural Capital

By

Sign in to view read count
Track review of "Golden House"

Sex Mob: Cultural Capital
Sex Mob celebrates 20-years in the business going back to their initial 1996 gigs at New York City's downtown music scene hub, The Knitting Factory. With its first album in four-years, the band jubilantly returns via its crisscrossing of jazz with pop, funk and other genres, complemented by witty dialogues, mischievous improv sequences and treks into the free zone. Unlike previous programs this album consists of all slide trumpeter, Steven Bernstein originals. To a certain degree, Sex Mob's distinct stylizations brand the group into its own musical persona, where listeners can often expect the unexpected, and rules are meant to be broken. Here, the musicians' diverse manifesto marches onward amid these 13-concise works that impart separate storylines, largely framed on tuneful choruses.

The group pays a little reverence to New Orleans with a shuffle beat, funk-induced second-line groove on "Golden House," where the musicians punch out the primary theme and saxophonist Briggan Krauss doubles up on electric guitar. Complete with bluesy slants, contrapuntal maneuvers and Krauss's serrated sax phrasings, you can visualize the ensemble leading a flock of dancers down Bourbon Street. However, they pump it up during the bridge, abetted by the hornists' cantankerous soloing as drummer Kenny Wolleson uses his mallets during an interlude that shifts the melody into a reverse- engineering process towards closeout. Once again, Sex Mob translucently intertwines an artful rite of passage, spotted with cinematic visualizations, and its personalized line of attack. Welcome back!

Track Listing

Street; Step Apache; Bari Si; Helmland; 4 Cents; Syrup; Giant Minds; Valentino; Golden House; Lacy; Hear You; SF; Briggan.

Personnel

Sexmob
band / ensemble / orchestra

Steven Bernstein: slide trumpet, alto horn; Briggan Krauss: alto and baritone saxophones; Tony Scherr: acoustic and electronical bass, guitar; Kenny Wolleson: drums, percussion.

Album information

Title: Cultural Capital | Year Released: 2017 | Record Label: Rex Records

Comments

Tags


For the Love of Jazz
Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who create it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

You Can Help
To expand our coverage even further and develop new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for a modest $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination will vastly improve your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Fiesta at Caroga
Afro-Caribbean Jazz Collective
Fellowship
David Gibson
Immense Blue
Olie Brice / Rachel Musson / Mark Sanders

Popular

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.