The story goes that the riotous young techno-jazzers Moon Hooch used to be such popular buskers on New York’s subways that the NYPD banned their impromptu shows as a public-order hazard. Their virtuosic saxes-and-drums clamour of terse horn vamps, yelping dissonances, subterranean house-bass hooks and stormy drumming was a hit at July’s Love Supreme festival, and the trio wound up their first UK tour with a similarly headlong barge through a sound world they’re impressively making their own.
The UK octet Perhaps Contraption opened the show with a lively confection of sousaphone huffing, folksy and punky vocals and subtle sax lines. Moon Hooch then turned the sax-harmony trance between Mike Wilbur’s tenor and Wenzl McGowen’s baritone into a thumping baritone-led hook, a raucous Wilbur vocal, and head-to-head huddles in which the two saxists alternated bursts of free-flowing postbop counterpoint and stomping grooves. McGowen steadily unveiled his arsenal of ever bigger homemade horns, lyrical passages alternating with a swelling techno thunder that induced formidable drummer James Muschler to get bare-chested, while long circular-breathing sax solos from Wilbur occasioned incredulous whoops from the floor.
The trio’s sidestep into rap was less convincing, but an almost Ellingtonsque richness warmed the tenor-baritone theme that followed Muschler’s remarkable drum break late on. This unique trio of energetic eccentrics are proof that acoustic jazz instrumentation can pack a cliche-free dancefloor punch, and are likely to find their fanbase doubled by the next time they hit the UK.
