JAZZPARTY: Nobody Gets Away | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- Mondays, ugh, amiright? There’s at least one song about it, no wait I can think of several. Admittedly this was before we lived in an endless now where all time is some kind of beige background that you scream into and nobody can hear. Monday was once, however, the weekly focal point of our collected, psychic horror. That is except for one plucky band of musos, who, exhausted by weekends gigging soulless gigs, decided -on their industry’s day of rest- to have a jam. Laughing, drinking, dancing and playing only music that they cared about; it was a jazz party.

These Monday nights were fun and pretty regular, becoming residencies, hooked up by Clairy Browne & The Banging Rackettes’ songwriter Darcy McNulty and Wondercore Island supremo Si Jay Gould, so I hear. At joints like The Builders’ Arms and The Pound (again, so I'm told), a new group coalesced around McNulty and two other survivors of the Rackettes, bassist Jules Pascoe and very notably, vocalist Loretta Miller. Her occasional crooning, but more often roaring and screaming -with strong Janis Joplin vibes, listen to a cut like Bad Dream for spine-tingling evidence- are usually at the front of what is now at least an eight-piece outfit. I’m never quite sure about that number though: in the party spirit the band often drag their friends up on stage, be it Daniel Merriweather or Mojo Juju. If you have a look now, there’s not a single promo photo or music video relating to their debut album that doesn’t include the mischievously smiling mug of Lachlan Mitchell a.k.a. Laneous, even though he’s not actually in the group. It may not add up, but I guess it’s one of those problems that’s good to have.

The progression to becoming an actual band seems to have been a natural, very incremental one, so much so that they didn’t even really bother to pick a proper name. Their jazz parties became the Jazz Party, a moniker that’s kind of generic and not to everyone’s taste. They’ve even been asked to change it on multiple occasions, but on reflection they decided, “hey this is the essence of what we do, **** it, we’re keeping it. “…no, really you should change it.” “Ah, fine, how about instead ... JAZZPARTY! All one word, are you happy now? Why are you making that face?”

If it’s difficult to describe what JAZZPARTY do, musically, it’s because they do a lot. Darcy McNulty is the group’s primary songwriter and he plunders grooves from a rich trove of party music, including New Orleans’ tradition of marching bands, jazz funerals, second line parties and more; there's jump-blues, itself a fusion of boogie, swing, jazz, blues and more; JP also dig on soul, rock’n’roll, calypso, doo-wop; the list goes on. Lyrically, JAZZPARTY tend to paint in primary colours, singing with great gusto about drinking, partying and loving. Energy is more of a priority than subtlety. However, one of the band’s earliest songs, Rock’n’Roll Graveyard (so early it doesn’t appear here) is something of a metaphor and it really speaks to their sound: picking over the bones of musical tradition for every good thing they can get, a cannibal feast that is the meat of their craft; delightful!

A delight it is. Even though this band is still, clearly, at their best blasting it at a party or on the festival circuit, where so many of their gigs have been, their debut is never short of syncopated rhythm, lush spirit and brassy power. From the unwholesome enthusiasm of Drinking to the sweetly crooned blue-eyed soul of Stone Gaze, Latin breeziness of Lazy Love, lascivious doo-wop of Honey Bee and the cultish roar of Higher With My Love, it’s a potted party, good to the last spoonful.

Left to their own devices, musos often hunt down the fascinating music that nobody else knows about. Now, that can produce sounds both obscure and intimidating, but not this time! It turns out, when the Twentieth Century wasn’t a bloody horror, it was a big ol’ dance party. So much of that history, though so close, is a largely faded memory, except on nights of Monday madness with JAZZPARTY. Nobody Gets Away? That's because when they hear this, nobody wants to.

- Chris Cobcroft.