the hum / By Bob Doran

Bandemonium!

Plus: Joanne Rand’s new CD, ‘Broken Open’

(Feb. 14, 2008)  We’ll start by forgiving the fact that the Mardi Gras/Carnaval Blow-Out and Dance Extravaganza coming up this weekend is on a Saturday, even though Mardi is French for Tuesday. Who wants to (or has time to) party on a Tuesday, what with work and all, even if it is Fat Tuesday? And we’ll overlook the fact that the party’s a bit late considering that we’re already more than a week into Lent, since the Catholic origins of Carnival (or Carnaval if you prefer the Portuguese spelling) are often ignored.

We’ll ignore all that because the party Gregg Moore is planning for Saturday, Feb. 16, at the Arcata Playhouse sounds like a helluva good time, and it’s a benefit for the activities of Circus Remedy to boot.

Gregg Moore leads Bandemonium, performing Mardi Gras music Saturday at Arcata Playhouse. Photo by Bob Doran.

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The e-mail from Moore, written in bold green and gold letters on a purple background, promises, “five hours (at least!) of whompin’ and stompin’ dance grooves from two of the world’s original pre-Lenten rave cultures,” as in New Orleans and Brazil. What does he have in mind?

Before we get to that, we’ll offer a reminder of who this Gregg Moore guy is. Gregg is the grown-up son of CR music prof and world music maven Jerry Moore. He’s also the older brother of expat jazz saxophonist Michael Moore, last seen here with the wild and crazy (and Dutch) Instant Composer’s Pool Orchestra. Like his brother, Gregg spent many years making music in Holland. While he was there he began exploring the music made by brass and wind bands around the world, including those he calls “alternative bands.” He then spent 10 years in Portugal learning and playing the local folk music before coming back home to Humboldt in 2004. He brought with him a vast knowledge of crazy-ass music from many cultures and, as he puts it on the website for his music company, Relevant Music, he brought back “a wide variety of arrangements, transcriptions and compositions for large and small groups of wind and percussion,” painstakingly and lovingly assembled based on his work of the last few decades.

Since his return he’s been making all sorts of music. You may have heard some of the theatrical work he’s done with Dell’Arte or heard him play trombone and/or tuba in his Portuguese jazz/folk combo. Or perhaps you’ve heard one of several versions of Bandemonium, the mutant horn/percussion band that draws musicians young and old from southern and northern Humboldt. I’ve caught up with them a couple of times, once at the Humboldt Folklife Festival out in Blue Lake, then more recently when they played for a small crowd at the Arcata Playhouse for a Circus Remedy affair. (See “Send Out the Clowns” in the Journal‘s Jan. 3 edition).

My wife Amy was with me for that show. Like me, she loved the band; her only complaint was that it was a sit-down thing — she wanted to dance. Well, she’ll get her chance Saturday: The five-band dance concert will include a set of New Orleans-style music by a 20-strong pan-Humboldt version of Bandemonium.

Also on the bill: The Dixieleptics, with Gregg on tuba, Don Moehnke on trumpet, George Epperson on trombone, Randy Carrico on reeds and Jim Piehl on banjo, offering the Dixieland side of New Orleans music.

Then, to present a taste of Brazilian-style Mardi Gras batucada, there’s the hot samba dance and drum troupe Samba Quente(the North Country Fair folks, formerly known as Samba Da Alegria). For those unsure about how to move, there will be a short samba dance workshop. Then, taking things a step further, Bandemonium and Samba Quente will come together, taking things straight down to Rio. And to cap it all off, the party will conclude with a set by my favorite Humboldt Cajun band, The Bayou Swamis, whompin’ and stompin’ into the wee hours. What else could you ask for? Laissez les bon temps roulez!

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