The Brooklyn Rhythm Masters - Jose Flatfix - Bill Carney's Jug Addicts

The Brooklyn Rhythm Masters bring a youthful energy to the sounds of traditional New Orleans jazz and early swing. Though firmly rooted in tradition, they don’t deny their influences - their music is informed by the many forms American music has taken over the last century from country to modern bebop to rock and roll to bring a fresh take on the classic tunes. They truly play the music they love with a sense of joy and fun. This is why Olivier Conan, owner of Brooklyn's renowned jazz club, Barbes, calls their music ‘the most exciting early swing this side of the 21st century.’

The Brooklyn Rhythm Masters have conspired with Bliss Blood of Moonlighters fame to form ‘Here’s How’. All the grand songs from the 20’s through the 50’s are on hand. They set an elegant atmosphere and just the right mood for dancing. If you wished you could have had Ella Fitzgerald, or Billie Holiday or Mary Ford sing at your special occasion, then you will appreciate Bliss’ wonderful song stylings. You will imagine you are back at Roseland Ballroom, with a flower in your hair or a Martini in your hand.

Here is what some clients and others have to say about the Brooklyn Rhythm Masters:

I've had the pleasure of enjoying the music of the Brooklyn Rhythm Masters many times. I am a fan of all types of music but I am very particular about whom I go to see. As for the BRM, I've returned again and again to see and hear them perform. These talented and relatively young musicians have an understanding of the music that goes far beyond that of most of the musicians I've run across these days. They are truly a delight to behold.

-- Bruce McNichols, Music & Entertainment Producer, Muskrat Productions, Inc.

"How the hell can guys this young have such good chops and fine taste? Musta been listening to the right 78s, over and over, to the point that they are actually channeling the immortals of hot jazz."

-- Mike Olshan

What a Wedding. All our guests, the photographers, everyone connected with the venue, the curious and outspoken locals, my wife and I. We all agree that this was the best wedding we've ever been to. I'm not kidding. People are still talking about it. "Who was that Band?" they say. "Where can I see them" and "How did you find them?" are common questions. "The band made the wedding", "Amazing dancing music" and "What a wonderful feeling and exciting addition to a wedding" are comments we still respond to with, "HELL YEAH THEY WERE!". We searched low and high for an act that would give us just what the Brooklyn Rhythm Msters did, and we found them in the SUBWAY! Can you believe that? People just lost their minds in a flurry of joy and dancing, drinking and dancing. A truly fabulous band accompanied with taste, professionalism, and talent. We had so much fun. My wife agrees: if we ever have to do it again, we'll both be calling them back.

-- David Clark, Brooklyn

This is a long overdue thank you for the wonderful role you played in our wedding last summer! The music absolutely made the event! It fit the setting so perfectly and made everybody happy – people are still talking about it! Thank you for coming all the way up to Vermont and helping to make the day as magical as I could imagine!

---Emily and Dave

The Brooklyn Rhythm Masters
  1. Digidoo
  2. Tico Tico
  3. Louisiana Fairytale
  4. Everybody Loves My Baby
  5. Biscuit Song
  6. Blues in a Bottle
  7. S-H-I-N-E
The Brooklyn Rhythm Masters, featuring Bliss Blood
  1. Happy to Come Home to
  2. Let's Get Lost
  3. The Way You Look Tonight
  4. The Man I Love
  5. Easy to Love
  6. 'Til There Was You

The Brooklyn Rhythm Masters - Jose Flatfix - Bill Carney's Jug Addicts

The Jose Flatfix is bringing the sounds of the country to the big city. Whether it’s an Appalachian fiddle tune or a Bob Dylan number, a country waltz or a rock n roll song, they play their music with a raw energy and good time feeling as in the days before radio and records. Consisting of banjo, guitar, doghouse bass and fiddle, they will have you out on the dance floor in no time at all turning your party or occasion into a hoe down and a hootenanny.

 

Here’s what the New York Press had to say about them:

We hesitate to use the phrase “old time string band” to describe the Jose Flatfix, because that might suggest humorless revivalists who do not rock. These guys do rock, but they do so without amplifiers, bad tattoos, or much at all in the way of fanfare. In fact, they could probably tear sh*t up just sitting in your living room. Barring that, you’re best off finding a homey place to enjoy this band which features the genuine talents of local banjo legend Sean Condron and the lovely Sarah Alden who can lay a fiddle over her shoulder and whoop it up like a bad boy.

Sound Clips from the Self-Titled CD
  1. New York Town
  2. Cookoo
  3. Hold On (Gospel Plow)
  4. June Apple
  5. Ride Behind
  6. Cluck Old Hen
  7. White Freightliner
  8. Sparkle

The Brooklyn Rhythm Masters - Jose Flatfix - Bill Carney's Jug Addicts

Bill Carney's Jug Addicts apply the twinning principal utilized by Ornette Coleman’s early 60’s groups and the Max Roach Double Quartet to the jug band idiom. The result is a particularly robust and raucous jug band sound free from any archival obsessiveness. Featuring a dynamic palette of vocalists backed by an orchestra of rich, homey, and even elegant sounds. Familiar instruments meet novelty as guitars, fiddles and upright bass line up alongside washboard, kazoo, and washtub bass. The Jug Addicts draw from a broad repertoire of early jazz and Tin Pan Alley standards, blues and country in addition to ragtime and Memphis Jug Band classics. The music delivers the power and drive that can only be created when ten or more musicians dig in and play hard.

"Bill Carney's popular outfit has made the most jug impact in these parts since the Even Dozen and Jim Kweskin jug bands brought much-needed comic relief to the 1960s folk scare. The mix jug outfits have featured since the 1920s -- good time blues, country and proto-jazz for party-time messin' around by a whole bunch of people with more or less crude instruments and drinks all around -- is the mix here too. What else?" Village

-- Voice (Mazor), March 2004

"Anti-social, hell-raising trash-of-all-colors music." “An authentically twisted jug band"

-- Village Voice (Goldfein), October 2004

"No dithyramb is strong enough to praise these Addicts' approach to ragtime, early blues, jazz, and tin pan alley tunes. No jug is deep enough to contain all the superlatives lavished on them. They have been called Jesus' favorite wedding band, the Einsteins of one four five, Kandinsky's dream, and Bartok's posthumous gift to Brooklyn, and rumor has it that William Carney will be the first person to fill the newly created position of Brooklyn's Universal Maestro."

--Olivier Conan, owner of Brooklyn's renowned jazz club, Barbes, June, 2004

Jug Addicts: Cynthia's Kitchen
  1. He's in the Jailhouse Now
  2. Sadie Green
  3. It Ain't Right
  4. Chinatown
  5. Gonna Sit Right Down
  6. Bei Meir Bis Du Shoen
  7. Sentimental Gentleman from Georgia
  8. S-A-V-E-D
  9. Sheik of Araby
  10. You'll Never Find Another Kanaka Like Me
  11. La Vie en Rose

Also, check out The Jug Addicts' MySpace page!


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