Hazmat Modine - Live (2014)

The New York band Hazmat Modine first performed in Europe in 2007, taking the audiences by storm.
Their mix of styles is unique and highly-skilled. The band members’ long carriers with the greats of Pop and Jazz enables them to display a seemingly boundless diversity.
The idiosyncratic name Hazmat Modine derives from the oft-used term for “hazardous materials” combined with a well-known manufacturer of heating ovens, and reflects their hot blend of skewed horns, unusual rhythms, and musical influences ranging from Jazz, Blues, Rock, American Roots and Worldmusic. These are the trademarks of this NYC band with the one-of-a-kind sound.
After more than 250 successful concerts, Hazmnat Modine’s enthusiastic audiences were clamoring for a live album.
A selection of their best material from concerts in Hamburg, Bensheim and Saarburg in Germany;
Zürich in Switzerland, New York in USA and Vancouver, Canada go to make up this production.
The recordings reflect Hazmat Modine in a number of different personnel variations, along with guest musicians.
Among the 8 titles are 3 previously unissued titles, favorites among listeners; “Something you got“, “Baby please don’t go“, and “Catfish Blues“. “Bahamut“, which deals with an ancient Arabic legend of a miraculous fish who bears the entire world on it’s back, is the band’s most recent live recording. The personnel is practically identical with the currently-touring group, and was recorded in Fall 2013 in Vancouver,
“Bahamut” has become one of the group’s best-known and most-loved pieces, exploring as it does, the many musical influences mentioned above – all in one delicious composition. It has been selected to accompany some of the world’s great dance ensembles, including global-star Pina Bausch and her Tanztheater Wuppertal, the Stuttgart State Ballet, as well as dance ensembles from Soweto, South Africa.
“Everybody loves you” excites, with the fulminating sousaphone solo by Joe Daley. Irving Berlin’s classic “Walking Stick” reveals again the band’s extraordinary breadth.
Wade Schuman‘s concept was to present as much live music-making as possible. The constant applause, as well as the charming introductions of this bandleader, singer, and multi-instrumentalist have been omitted, so as to offer the listener just the pure, musical experience.
We recommend in particular, Big Joe Williams’ blues classic “Baby please don’t go” with the improbable but surprisingly appropriate overtone singing of the great Hun Huur Tu ensemble from Tuva in central Asia; An absolute one-of-a-kind encounter, if ever there was one!