Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
Talk about drive and gumption, these two guys have got it! After a long day of sun and music which included the likes of the Original Meters this year at Jazz Fest in New Orleans, I was stopped in my tracks by the funkified sounds of these two guys jammin' their hearts out on the front porch of a humble house. Their CD is a welcome addition to my playlist and I look forward to seeing these two get their groove on in more suitable surroundings!
- Michelle Sammartino
Host of "Jammin' Jazz"
XM Satellite Radio Ch. 72
- None
A trip to the 2004 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival was the impetus for Mayhap, the two-piece funk outfit of organ and drums led by Brian Werner and Paul Madigan. If you're thinking of another duo, the Benevento-Russo comparison is inevitable but not entirely accurate. Mayhap pushes past theoretical quandries, pulsing more to a hard Jimmy Smith groove than a complex Monk circuit. An exciting new strain willing to go at the party and at the brain simultaneously. --Grayson Currin
- Independent Weekly
"I'm telling you, it's only two guys up here making all that beautiful, beautiful music" - WSHA 88.9FM Raleigh
Discography
Might Could - full length CD released in April 2005.
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
In 2004, having secured a rental house adjacent to the fairgrounds where Jazzfest is held, Paul Madigan and Brian Werner decided to bring their instruments to New Orleans and jam on the front porch for the people leaving at the end of the day. With people dancing in the streets and coming back each day to hear them play, they decided to give the duo concept a shot. They started to expand on the crude two track recordings they had made earlier in the year, and after obtaining the necessary skills and equipment, they recorded and released a full length CD under the name Mayhap. They introduced the CD, entitled Might Could, at the 2005 Jazzfest on the very same front porch. The first 100 copies of the CD were sold that weekend, and since the customers were primarily tourists in town for the fest, those copies are now spread across the country and the world.
Both natives of Rochester, NY, Paul and Brian have been playing music together for almost a decade. In 2004, after three bands and several hundred shows together, they decided it was time to pare down to a duo and explore the instrumental funk jams they'd been playing since first visiting New Orleans.
The two first played together in the summer of '96 after meeting through mutual friends in Rochester. That fall, they moved to Raleigh, NC and formed a band with a couple of other relocated Rochestarians. In 1997, they shared a stage with a local band called Drifting Through which proceeded to recruit the two to complete their band. Drifting Through played venues from NYC to Key West and recorded a full length CD with noted producer Don McCollister before breaking up in 2001.
Shortly thereafter, Paul and Brian started a new project called Gambit and continued to play out locally. At the same time, they were becoming more and more drawn to the sound they heard during their annual trips to New Orleans for Jazzfest. Brian first attended Jazzfest in '99 and returned with Paul in '01. It quickly became an annual trip, and with each subsequent visit, the rhythms and sounds of the Big Easy began to permeate their entire musical catalogue. Bands like the Funky Meters, Galactic, Astral Project and any number of other New Orleans jazz and funk bands became huge influences. A sound that they never knew existed began to define their musical direction, and that direction was beginning to lead them away from their current project. Gambit broke up at the end of 2003.
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