Louis Armstrong sitting in with the Art Ensemble of Chicago? Buddy Bolden jamming with McCoy Tyner, with Fletcher Henderson dropping by for a few bars? That’s roughly the idea behind the latest recording by the prolific New York jazz orchestra Mostly Other People Do the Killing. Postmodern juxtaposition runs rampant as MOPDK segues easily from the New Orleans of a century ago into the precincts of the ’60s avant-garde, from the Hot Five to Horace Silver—sometimes with banjo leading the way rhythmically.
