Artist description Unique, acoustic quintet from Denton, Texas -- a tight, electrifying, minimalist orchestra.

Music Style Alternative cabaret, neo-cabaret, small-group minimalist big band. No particular allegiance to any style, other than the one appropriate to any particular lyric. Content dictates the musical setting, always, and we've embraced a wide variety of styles: waltz, big band/swing, tango, habanera, rhumba, klezmer, polka, slouch, beguine, tarantella, ballad, schottische, jazz waltz, gutbucket shuffle, samba, samba-reggae, cha cha, cotton club congo swing, spaghetti western, and bossa nova.

Musical Influences My influences include but are not limited to, Brecht/Weill, early Carla Bley, Tom Waits, Randy Newman, Hubert Selby Jr., Raymond Carver, Edward Hopper, Nino Rota, Stephen Sondheim, and the circus. Actually a much longer list.

Similar Artists Tom Waits, Randy Newman, Brecht/Weill, Marianne Faithfull, Jacques Brel

Artist History Little Jack Melody formed his band of Young Turks in 1990 in Denton, TX. Having appropriated his nom de plume from an obscure beat generation footnote, and inspired by the cabaret phenomenon in Europe between the wars (music as commentary), he set out to re-think current combo formatting by deleting electric guitar from the lineup. The band has inched along ever since, touring most of the US and some of Canada, and has released 4 CDs.

Group Members Little Jack Melody, Brad Williams, Jeff Curry, Jeff Fort, Danny Lueck

Instruments The first 2 CDs (On the Blank Generation and World of Fireworks) featured harmonium (pump organ), tuba, saxes/clarinet, drums, tenor banjo and vocal. The third and fourth (My Charmed Life and Noise and Smoke) have veered toward piano, Hammond organ, upright bass, saxes, a little clarinet, drums, less banjo, and vocal.

Albums On the Blank Generation, World of Fireworks, My Charmed Life, Noise and Smoke

Press Reviews New York Magazine: "...Melody's painfully acute observations on modern life--like a Kurt Weill for the Tarantino age." **************** David Fricke, Rolling Stone: "...supper-club class and fine surrealist humor. One song retells the Creation story with Frank Sinatra as God; another celebrates the liberation of Switzerland. Deeply weird, utterly fab..."

Location Denton, Texas - USA

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