FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com JANUARY 24, 2013 •BUZZ • THE QUEENS COURIER69 buzz Astoria musician sees value without $$$ JAZZHANDS BY MITCHELL KIRK make up the music of chamber pop ensemble Alice, venues and organizations are still fi nding it diffi cult to which combines the sounds of an accordion, wood- achieve fi nancial sustainability. “We knew after graduation we were going to move winds, strings, guitar, percussion and of course, Elliott “Do we take a free market approach, where the fact to New York, just because that’s what one does,” said on the bass. Elliott said that all of the notated articula- that people don’t like jazz and classical music means Moppa Elliott, the Scranton, Pennsylvania native, now tions in Alice’s music pose a challenge that he can’t that it fails in the free market?” Elliott asks. “A lot of residing in Astoria, who came here with friends in 2002 help but enjoy. people will subscribe to that. Or, do we say that jazz to pursue a career in jazz music. Straying from the organization, continuity and con- and classical music has value beyond its direct eco- His nickname derived from his “moppy” hairstyle sistency of these two groups is jazz quartet Mostly nomic impact, that it means something more than its as a boy. His character as a musician was also Other People Do the Killing (MOPDtK), of which ability to make money?” shaped throughout his youth by his parents, whom Elliott also serves as bandleader. The name is derived Because of this, many American jazz and classical he described as avid music lovers themselves. After from a remark Soviet inventor Léon Theremin made in artists and ensembles have to go where they’re more starting out with the piano and then the tuba, as response to political executions carried out by Joseph appreciated, which often means traveling overseas. a teenager he started playing the upright bass, his Stalin’s regime. Europe offers a different approach on the matter, instrument-of-choice to this day. He studied at the “At any given time, you can do anything you want,” using more public funds to fi nance music events, making Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts and the Elliott said, describing MOPDtK’s style. “Continuity the art form more accessible to all income levels. Many Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, graduating in is not a goal, necessarily. It’s more about risk and European countries have government departments in 2001 with a degree in jazz bass performance as well as juxtaposition.” place for this very purpose. Take France’s Ministry of a degree in biology from Oberlin College. He said his MOPDtK has performed across America and Europe Culture, for instance, or Finland’s Arts Council, which time at college was particularly infl uential on how he with a catalog of original compositions and jazz stan- advises the country’s Ministry of Education and Culture creates and interprets music from the way it expanded dards. Their fi fth studio album, titled “Slippery Rock,” and receives funds from the state arts budget. his rural Pennsylvania roots by exposing him to differ- is slated to drop January 22 on Hot Cup Records. In According to data compiled by the National ent people with different tastes. contrast to the fast-paced and variable sound of their Endowment for the Arts, the organization contributed After arriving in New York, he soon found himself previous records, Elliot said the new album takes a dif- $0.47 per capita to arts funding in America in 2012, splitting his time between several ensembles, admiring ferent approach, being based on smooth jazz. whereas European organizations like the Arts Council each for the differences in approach that they offer. Following the release of “Slippery Rock,” MOPDtK of Wales and the Arts Council of Ireland contributed There’s the music of jazz group Jon Lundbom & Big will embark on a tour across Europe, a continent in sums over 30 times that amount to arts funding in their Five Chord, for instance, which Elliott described as pos- which Elliott thinks societies place a much higher respective countries. sessing a continuity that still allows for improvisation value on the arts than in the U.S. The often-times high “It’s a matter of deciding whether or not we value through the band’s style of implementing morsels of the cost of attending classical and jazz concerts here in the culture and if we do value culture, realizing that there written sections through improvised sections. States, Elliott said, creates an “elitist loop,” in which are values to music and art that are not represented in Then there are the more structured components that the wealthy become the only ones attending. 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