Former NYC buskers Moon Hooch are updating jazz for the techno age

Synthesizing the skronk and creativity of jazz into modern party music is Moon Hooch’s speciality.

Starting out busking on the streets, the trio of drummer James Muschler plus horn players Mike Wilbur and Wenzl McGowen came together to make some extra cash while studying jazz in Brooklyn. They took dual passions for modern dance music and jazz, and started blasting out high energy funky instrumentals, stretched and skewed into danceable improvisations that more closely resemble a techno set than anything Ellington or Coltrane ever did.

"We started playing on the street because we were dead broke and needed some cash without the feeling of incarceration normal jobs provide," says sax-player Wilbur. "After a while we started getting offers to play at people's parties, private events and eventually we decided to throw our own raves. It was a crazy time in our lives." Seven years, three albums, and one live album into their career though, and the trio have appeared on the likes of Later... with Jools Holland and are pretty well constantly touring around the world, checking into festivals and parties on nigh a daily basis.

The idea of a jazz-rave could sound strange, but long crazy nights of partying are actually right at the core of jazz’s origins. It’s a genre that came to life inside the sweaty speakeasies of prohibition America, and dark busy clubs of old New Orleans. Moon Hooch update the genre in their own unique way, weaving in heavy free-jazz brimstone alongside funk fire amped up by beats inspired by the likes of James Brown and Aphex Twin. They litter their compositions with musical tropes from EDM and techno, hold-and-releasing dancers to massive beat drops closer to Skrillex than Miles. The twin horn players twist their instruments into producing wobbly dubstep basslines, while Muschler’s stickwork veers between ‘Amen break’ funk-outs and more complex and jazzier rhythms. They’re playing party music distilled down to its key elements of rhythms, hooks, and pure muscular energy.

"It's funny because personally I feel like EDM is actually emulating the sounds of acoustic instruments," explains Wilbur, "I was interested in manipulating the sounds of the saxophone far before I ever listened to electronic music and they just happened to work very nicely with what we were doing."

Out of necessity, early shows on the street and in subways - some of which were broken up by the cops, and would then later became those parties and raves around NYC - were entirely acoustic. The trio would even strap a massive traffic cone onto the tenor sax to create deeper bass noises acoustically, as seen in this video session they did for NPR. Since their 2016 LP Red Sky however, Moon Hooch have been branching out sonically, adding electronic gear alongside acoustic instruments. Various synths and an EWI (electronic wind instrument) have been gradually adding new colours to the group’s techno-jazz, fleshing out live shows with a new host of possibilities. "We are not stuck on being an ‘acoustic band that emulates electronic music’," clarifies Wilbur, "we formed as an acoustic ensemble by happenstance. As individuals we are constantly trying to expand and move forward. We’re now using a Moog Sub37 and a bunch of Euro Rack Modular gear. It definitely helps to break up the set in an interesting aural way."

Aside from their music the trio are also passionate about something else: veganism and animal rights. They regularly flyer and try to bring awareness of the cause to their shows. As Wilbur explains, "veganism and animal rights plays into everything for me. When you start thinking about how to avoid directly supporting the torture and mutilation of billions of innocent beings on a daily basis, your life starts to change in interesting ways." While it clearly doesn’t play a necessarily direct musical role, Moon Hooch’s activism certainly ties in with the sheer positivity and celebration of life that is their live shows. "I feel like my music has become more focused as a result of my conscious shift into non-violent eating."

Their rep as the ultimate techno-jazz trio firmly cemented by years on the streets of New York, Moon Hooch have been tearing it up increasingly widely across the globe, their shows becoming the stuff of sweaty legend. Bit by bit they’re growing longer, and more physically relentless, as Wilbur confirms. "They have indeed been getting longer! Some say musicians are the olympians of the small muscles."

This November, Moon Hooch are coming to Europe, playing shows in France and the Netherlands, as well as a date in Manchester plus a show as part of the London Jazz Festival at Fulham venue Under the Bridge. Most trios who met in jazz school and play at jazz festivals do sit-down gigs, or recitals, or music for chin scratching. So what can you expect from a Moon Hooch show?

"Our shows are extremely high energy and more than anything, they speak for themselves," Wilbur proclaims. "People can expect to leave covered in sweat - maybe my sweat."