The Franco Proietti Morph-tet
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The Franco Proietti Morph-tet

Montréal, Quebec, Canada | INDIE

Montréal, Quebec, Canada | INDIE
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"Musicoscribe Review (Like The Shore Is To The Ocean)"

Combining not-traditionally-related styles is pretty much the thing to do in the 21st century. But doing it well, that’s a completely different story. One can’t simply toss assorted genres into the metaphorical sonic blender and whip up something good. It takes a deep understanding of the styles being combined.
That understanding is in evidence on Like The Shore is to the Ocean, the latest from a Montreal-based outfit called The Franco Prioetti Morph-tet. The genres being mashed up here are jazz, a bit of funk, tuntablism and hip-hop. Oh, but’s that’s just acid jazz, I hear you saying. Well, maybe. But when the Morph-tet takes a nodding, loping jazz track like “Logarhythm” and features both turntable scratching and a sax solo, both elements work: neither sounds or feels tacked-on. Some tasty Rhodes work gives the track a classic 70s feel, but that scratching pushes it into modern day. Toward the end of the number, things move into what can only be described as a dialogue between the horn section and the DJ, punctuated by jazzy drum fills. And the damn thing works.
A late-night blues bar ambience sets the scene for “Like the Shore Is…” and a soulful lead vocal calls to mind some of Zero 7’s early efforts. The two-part “Thunder Don’t Smoke” kicks off with a bluesy intro that is vaguely reminiscent of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Couldn’t Stand the Weather,” but then quickly moves into a boogaloo vibe evocative of 1950s crime drama themes. A beefy, assertive horn section carries the tune, and some tasty jazz guitar work adds even more interest.
Another two-parter, “Spacewhale” opens with a long, wordless female vocal chorus and streetcorner-style sax. A snaky saxophone melody forms this track’s basis; other instruments come in one by one to support that melody. A spoken/rapped vocal floats above a lilting two-chord vamp, and – in more traditional fashion – the song wraps up by restating the musical theme. A bizarre vocal section closes the song on a pleasingly jarring note.
“Silence Left Unspoken” uses upright bass and heavily echoed harmonica to establish its forlorn, melancholy vibe. For most of its run time (save the last minute and half or so) it’s more of a mood piece than a melody; the song begs for use in a film soundtrack. Things are kicked up several notches for the funky “Shout Out,” featuring a Caribbean-flavored vocal that’s equal parts singing and rapping. The vocalist’s phrasing owes more to jazz than rap, and the chorus vocals (accented with handclaps) imbue the number with the proper party vibe. And the stop-start horn work really cooks.
An ode to the band’s hometown, “Montreal” launches with some cartoonish dialogue between the turntable and a lone sax. Here the vocal is more traditionally rap-centric, but again the band – not samples or loops, mind you, but real players – keep things decidedly musical. The loose-snare jazz drumming is the track’s unifying element, though some instrumental soloing on the song’s second half (especially the guitar bits) adds even more flavor.
“Away From the Sound and Fury” is a nod to cool, romantic jazz of decades past. Lightly plinking piano and swaying horns evoke a film noir shipboard romance, forties-style. But the disc closes with “…to the ocean,” a song like nothing that has come before. Ghostly female vocalizations weave in an out of what’s almost a jazzy drum solo with the other instruments floating in and out. Elements of spy themes and other kitchen-sink elements all add up to the album’s most left-field track.
Some of the songs on Like the Shore is to the Ocean appeared on an earlier lo-fi live album, 2010’s Live! A Weekend at Centre St. Ambroise, but this studio album is the best entry point for new listeners.
- Musicoscribe


"The Big Take Over Review (Like The Shore Is To The Ocean)"


THE FRANCO PROIETTI MORPH-TET
Like The Shore Is To The Ocean

Review by Mark Suppanz

(Bongo Beat Can)

Montreal saxophonist/flutist Proietti (a high school English and
biology teacher by day) formed this constantly "morphing" 10-member
ensemble following the dissolution of 1999-2006 acid jazz outfit
Kobayashi. They made a splash quickly, with their first two LPs
garnering Grammy consideration. Thanks to Proietti's ranging
interests, their melodious jazz blends many styles, from funk (the
organ-fueled "Logarhythm"), hip-hop (the joyous "Shout Out",
spotlighting regular vocalist Jonathan Emile and guest Athena
Holmes), and big-band ("Montreal" featuring guest DShade's rapping),
to dub (the floor-shaking "...to the ocean") and even Miles
Davis-inspired film scores (the meditative, noirish "Silence Left
Unspoken"). Naturally, the band also excels on more traditional jazz
pieces such as "Away From The Sound and Fury" , with its mellow
horns, delicate piano, and candlelit ambience. Proietti's eclectic
tastes guarantee this third album is a rewarding, refreshing, and
relaxed listen. - The Big Take Over (#69, Fall 2011)


"Rip current Montreal’s Franco Proietti Morph-Tet pool their pedigreed funk, jazz and hip hop resources on Like the Shore Is to the Ocean"

You’ve always been able set your watch to the Morph-Tet’s beat, but hearing Franco Proietti describe his revolving-door funk fusion project’s current line-up as “stable” indicates that the bandleader has found his own footing as manager of the controlled chaos that he envisioned.
Just a little over three years ago, it was Proietti, his sax and his laptop. Since then, we’ve seen some 16–18 “members” ebb and tide, and now the latest seven-piece live incarnation of the Morph-Tet launch Like the Ocean Is to the Shore, the outfit’s third LP and second studio experience.
“The personnel changes that have happened have always turned out for the best, in terms of one person leaves, and another person comes and brings something completely new,” Proi­etti says.
“This album is a lot more focused in its musical intention. I wouldn’t say it all sounds the same—I wouldn’t want to make an album like that, anyways—but I think it’s a lot more focused in that you can describe it as a funk, jazz, hip hop fusion album, and not have any surprises.”
Learning to manage his enfant bête has earned him the freedom to gel with the creative atmosphere that the different players bring. A multi-instrumentalist, he composes and weighs veto over the end arrangements, but balances power by acknowledging the pedigree his players bring and welcoming their personal contributions.
“Typically, it will be people who play instruments that I can’t play, that will show me why my idea is rough and needs to be improved upon. Like, ‘Hey, here’s a bassline!’ Um, no,” Proietti laughs.
“So I’ll say, here is the type of thing I am thinking of—here’s the key, here’s the chord changes, here’s the time signature—and [bassist Shaun Ryan] will go ‘Yeah cool, man,’ and then kinda do his own thing with it. ‘Cuz I’m not a bass player, and the stuff he does is better.”
“Same thing with the drums. I’ll tell Fernando [Gelso, a Morph-Vet from way back] the bare essentials of what I need, and then he’ll show me what can be done with that. And at the same time, I’m not at all shy of calling people out on doing stuff that I don’t like,” Proietti states plainly.
“With Jon [Emile, current lead vocalist], I would never even dream of writing lyrics for him. So I’ll give him an instrumental version of the song and I’ll just wait to see what he comes up with,” he continues. Laughing, he notes that, “All the things I hate about hip hop, he does too.”
Proietti doesn’t say that lightly. His music is driven by the will to inform willing listeners that they don’t hate hip hop, they just don’t ever hear the real thing. He cites the Herbaliser and Digable Planets as personal inspirations, but doesn’t get trapped in ’94.
“I don’t know that I set out to recreate stuff that’s already been done. And I don’t know either that I set out to do something completely new. I just write the music that comes to me, that is inside me, but because of that, it’s gonna have those influences,” he says. “But because it’s coming through me, it’s going to sound a little bit new because I’m putting my filter on it.” - Montreal Mirror


"Franco Proietti Will Teach You To Love Jazz"

So you think you hate hip-hop? Or jazz? If Franco Proietti’s musical career so far has been about anything, it’s been about trying to show that you might just be mistaken.

Jazz, funk and hip hop are what sax player Proietti calls the three pillars of his music – first with Kobayashi, which disbanded in 2006, and now with the Franco Proietti Morph-tet, which is about to release its second studio album, Like the Shore Is to the Ocean.

“There have been many shows where people who were there to hear the opening band or just there for a drink come up to me after our set and say ‘I don’t like jazz and I don’t like hip hop, but I like your band.’ And I’m thinking ‘You probably do like jazz and hip hop, just not Lil Wayne,’” Proietti said during a recent interview. “And a lot of what passes for jazz on the radio is one step away from elevator music, so they think of it as sleepy time music. But maybe you like Dixieland. Maybe you like big band or bebop or cool jazz. Or all that funk stuff.”

“I’ve had (musical options revealed) to me and I always appreciated it,” he said. “Ten years ago, I would have told you I would never like country, but it just took someone to show me the right country music: not Achy-Breaky Heart, but some really good Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson. And I would have sworn to you that I don’t like techno, because I don’t like MC Mario’s mixes. But some of it is really intelligent and well-written.

“I would like to do that for people who say they don’t like jazz or they don’t like hip hop,” he said.

Proietti, who teaches at Loyola High School, is about to devote a one-year sabbatical to improving his playing and composing. Along the way, he said, he has tried to provide his students with a broader musical palette. It might have been by exposing skeptical metalheads to the history of hip hop during Black History Month through the music of A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets, De La Soul or The Pharcyde. Or maybe it was when he turned them on to the fundamentals of Charlie Parker. Students frequently get in touch to thank him, even after they move on to college, he said.

The musical eclecticism that defined the Morph-tet’s debut album, Morphology, was extreme. Proietti said the disc was basically a solo project, with hired musicians contributing backing tracks for him to assemble, collage-like, with a looping program. The recording had also been initially intended as a private project for family and friends, he said.

The new release is a more focused attack by a real band. It’s often reminiscent of Kobayashi, with rapping and scratching, big band and bebop and some funky grooves from the rhythm section.

Album opener Logarhythm, with strutting sax lines reminiscent of King Curtis, is what Proietti called a “real dirty, gritty funk song. I love playing stuff where the audience can’t help but bob their heads. When we play that, even the stiffest, straightest dude is going ….,” he said, words trailing off as he physically illustrated the up-and-down head motion of the instantly-converted spectator.

Two large ensemble tracks on the new disc, arranged by trumpet player Alex Gutjahr, bring the group’s elements together. The ballad Away From the Sound and Fury – recorded in two takes, without overdubs – sounds like it could be a jazz standard in the making, while a new local national anthem, Montreal, blends big band and hip hop. DShade, formerly of the rap trio Shades of Culture, shared the vocal duties on the track with the band’s regular singer, Jonathan Emile.

Proietti said Montreal was inspired by A Suite for Ma Dukes, composer Miguel Atwood-Ferguson’s orchestration of beats created by hip hop producer J Dilla. “I had been fusing jazz and hip hop for a long time, but hip hop and classical?,” Proietti said. “The closest thing for me, with a lot of musicians, is big band. So I thought `Why don’t we do a big band and hip hop fusion?’”

The blending of musical sensibilities is also reflected, metaphorically, in the album’s title, which, in turn, is broken down and illustrated by two of its tracks: the reflective and soulful jazz waltz Like the Shore Is - and the tempestuous closer - to the Ocean. Both are the same composition imagined in different ways.

“The concept is duality,” Proietti said. “A lot of the songs have two different things going on. There can be two very different sides to one person. Sometimes you’re the ocean – powerful, passionate, busting sand castles, smashing around, and driftwood. But sometimes you’re the shore. You have to lay there and let things happen, see what the ocean’s going to do. It might make some really cool designs on you, and you have to accept the universe. If you’re religious, you could say it’s what God is putting in your life. If you’re not, you can look at it a different way.”

Acknowledging that jazz by definition has limitations in the marketplace – “The last time it was popular music was when it was dance music,” Proietti said – the bandleader said he is nonetheless encouraged by the cyclical nature of music trends. Kobayashi, he pointed out, were part of a vital scene when the acid jazz genre was peaking in the early 2000s. “As that died, so did Kobayashi,” he said. But maybe something jazzier and funkier could make inroads again, he said. “The music scene isn’t static,” he said.

Proietti said he has faith in music lovers. The music business, he said, doesn’t give enough credit to them. “Given the chance to hear more interesting and engaging music, the average listener would actually enjoy it,” he said.

The coming year will bring intense practice, private lessons with saxophonist and composer Dave Turner, more jam session activities and genre-broadening in Proietti’s playing. “I haven’t reached my potential yet,” he said.

But his heart will clearly not be far from his students. He took a one-year sabbatical once before. “It was during that time that I realized how much I love teaching, because I missed it,” he said. “Practicing many hours a day and performing in front of people is great, but it’s all directed toward me. With every day I go in to work with the kids, I know I’m doing something that’s not really about me. I like thinking I’m making a positive difference in the world.

“And everyone who has graduated from my English class knows who John Coltrane is.”



Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Franco+Proietti+will+teach+love+jazz/5388004/story.html#ixzz1gRiCfsBu - Montreal Gazette


"Montreal Mirror CD Review (LIVE! A Weekend at Centre St. Ambroise)"

The Franco Proietti Morph-Tet
Live! A Weekend at Centre St-Ambroise (Bongo Beat)
There’s a solid tradition of jazz bands recording live at a favourite haunt, and to that end local sax-man and band leader Proietti chose St-Henri’s Centre St-Ambroise for a two-night stand last fall. The best moments are here, ranging from murky moments of updated acid jazz and neo-bop to unvarnished party-time funk ’n’ blues. Solid sound, cool guests and great sets bolstered by the audiences’ enthusiasm reflect well on this highly diversified outfit to watch out for. 7/10 Trial Track: “Overpass” (Rupert Bottenberg) - Montreal Mirror


"It's Hip To Be Jazz"

It's hip to be jazz.
Franco Proietti's Morph-tet pushes the envelope of the classic genre
Bernard Perusse - The Gazette.
Restless sampling by music lovers in the iTunes age might not be the friendliest environment for your traditional, improvisation-heavy jazz opus. But the single-track-dominated online forum could be ideal for sax player Franco Proietti's no-boundaries, hip-hop-savvy approach to the genre.

The former member of Kobayashi has a new group, the Franco Proietti Morph-tet, with a debut disc, Morphology. And like the work of his previous band, the new ensemble's smorgasbord of sounds includes fairly straight-ahead bebop, scratching, rapping, twisted blues, surreal tales and tips of the hat to Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis.

In a recent interview, Proietti, 31, admitted to having some initial reservations about releasing a disc that thrives on sharp stylistic turns. But his co-producer and mixer Kevin Komoda suggested the project was well-timed, given the popularity of downloading single tracks on iTunes and its kin.

That was good news for Proietti. 'I love so many different kinds of music,' he said. 'I've got musical ADD or something. I don't want to be in a band that only plays one thing.'.

Proietti started thinking about blending jazz with other contemporary sounds when he was at St. Lambert Elementary School. He was only 8, but his father, Ron - who occasionally plays harmonica with the Morph-Tet - had schooled him well. While everyone in his class was listening to Guns N' Roses or Run D.M.C., Proietti was listening to Oscar Peterson and Charlie Parker.

But social pressure dictated that he would have to come down on one side or the other in the then-hot rock-vs.-hip hop debate. While he liked Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, he said, he had no interest in the 'hair metal' so popular with his classmates.

'The thing I liked about early hip hop in the late '80s was that they always used jazz samples back then - a lot of Herbie Hancock, and a lot of high horns like Dizzy Gillespie,' he said. 'I always thought in my head there had to be a way to bring hip hop and jazz together. It just made sense to me.'.

He heard his dream realized when he was in high school. Branford Marsalis launched his Buckshot LeFonque project in 1994 - a year after Digable Planets had issued their first disc, Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space).

'When I heard those two albums, I thought 'Yeah! Someone's doing exactly what I thought had to be done!',' Proietti said. (To his delight, the Morph-tet recently opened for Digable Planets.).

The musical epiphany brought on by those two recordings echoed in the 1999 formation of the envelope-pushing jazz ensemble Kobayashi, which built an increasingly devoted local following until it broke up in 2006. Proietti said the group fell apart mostly through differences over what musical direction it should take. Straight-ahead jazz, techno and progressive rock à la Radiohead were among the mooted preferences from different members, he said.

Increasing responsibilities and committed relationships also made it difficult for Kobayashi to book shows outside the city, Proietti said.

Yet he continues to balance the demands of breaking a new group with the responsibilities of his job as an English and biology teacher at Loyola High School. 'It's about making the right choices and playing the right shows,' he said, noting that his days of, let's say, playing a Toronto gig on a Wednesday night and driving home to work the next day are over.

The important thing was to get right back on the horse after Kobayashi, Proietti said. '(The Morph-tet) started off with me knowing that if I didn't keep creating music right away, I would end up putting a lot more time into teaching - which is not a bad thing, but any job can really just take over your life, and I didn't want that to happen,' he said.

The Morph-tet, as its name implies, has a fluctuating personnel. The concept started with Proietti playing a one-man show last year, armed only with his laptop and sampled sounds. 'The more shows I played, the more I realized that I wanted a live rhythm section,' he said. 'You can't be free, you can't improvise, you can't vibe off a computer. My first show sounded very close to karaoke.”.

Since then, like John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, the group's membership - centred on the core of Proietti, turntablist Andrew Kushnir, bassist J.F. Martins and drummer Fernando Gelso, with alto sax player Averil Parker and baritone sax and flute player Melissa Pipe at almost every show - has been known to expand and contract. When Morphology was launched at O Patro Vys in June, there were 13 musicians on stage.

'I'm hoping that the people that dig the music I put out are omnivorous, like I am,' Proietti said.....
- Montreal Gazette


"Voir Montreal CD review (LIVE! A Weekend at Centre St. Ambroise)"

Stanley Péan

Enregistré devant public en septembre dernier, le nouvel album du Morph-tet reflète les influences diverses qui ont nourri le saxophoniste-compositeur Franco Proietti, qui signe toutes les plages sauf une empruntée à Mingus (Moanin'). Au programme, de l'acid jazz de haut vol, mâtiné de reggae, de hip-hop, de funk, de soul et de rap, le tout interprété véritablement live, sans bidouillages studio ni overdubs. Chapeau au leader, à ses musiciens (notamment Melissa Pipe au baryton et à la flûte) et à leurs invités (dont ces vétérans de Kobayashi que sont Chris Tauchner aux claviers et Joshua Gearey aux effets électroniques). Volontiers enthousiasmante et endiablée, cette musique s'affirme comme la trame sonore idéale des soirées de l'été qui tire à sa fin. - Voir (Montreal)


"Impact Campus CD review (Morphology)"

Voici un album plus que convaincant de la part de l’ex-Kobayashi Franco Proietti, saxophoniste alto, flûtiste et leader de la nouvelle formation The Franco Proietti Morph-Tet. Accompagné de son Morph-Tet, il nous présente un opus alliant des sonorités dark jazz avec des moments plus trip-hop, des cuivres tonitruants et des basses vibrantes, des vocaux aussi originaux que rares et une panoplie d’instruments venant compléter chacune des ambiances diverses de l’album.

On retrouve d’ailleurs un MC sur quelques unes des pièces, Omari Newton, ainsi qu’un DJ, Andrew Kushinr, responsable des scratchs et des séquences électroniques pré-enregistrées, qui contribuent à donner à l’album un son définitivement nu-jazz. Enfin, une solide section rythmique, composée du batteur Fernando Gelso et du bassiste JF Martins, ainsi qu’un autre saxophoniste alto et une saxophoniste baryton également flûtiste, Averil Parker et Melissa Pipe respectivement, viennent compléter la liste des musiciens figurant sur cet album éclectique et rafraîchissant comportant un son décidément cinématique. Les compositions qui nous y sont proposées sont tout à fait accessibles sans tomber dans le commercial, grâce notamment à des expérimentations inusitées et à une fusion des styles plutôt originale.

Les deux premières chansons de l’album «Lucky 13» et «Bushido», ainsi que la dernière pièce, «DT», sont de loin les plus mémorables. D’ailleurs, la seule chose qu’on peut reprocher à l’album est de manquer de constance sur certains morceaux, mais cela contribue généreusement à sa diversité bien appréciée.

À écouter si vous aimez Kobayashi, Loka, Portishead, JMC Project ou Bobby Previte & The New Bump. Un pur délice et une qualité exemplaire de jazz canadien. - Impact Campus


"Montreal Gazette CD review (Morphology)"

The Franco Proietti
Morph-tet


Morphology
Bongo Beat

The former alto sax player from the lamented Kobayashi manages to make you forget the past on his new band’s debut disc. Assisted by the muscular rhythm section of drummer Marc Béland and bassist Rick Rosato, with a fluctuating guest list, Proietti reclaims the elements that made Kobayashi so captivating when its horn-hip-hop fusion first emerged on the Montreal music scene. That means the kind of crazy-like-a-fox experimentation that gives every track a distinct identity, including the beautifully arranged jazz-rap opus Bushido, the dense and fiery Verte De Fougerolles, which tastes a little like the immortal Bitches Brew, the horrific blues of Bottle Shaped Cage and the deeply weird cautionary tale/ circus waltz Chorophobia. Wonderful stuff. 4/5 stars.

Podworthy: Bushido
Bernard Perusse

Montreal Gazette: June 12th 2008.


- Montreal Gazette


"Montreal Mirror CD Review (Morphology)"

The Franco Proietti Morph-Tet
Morphology (Bongo Beat)
Montreal sax-and-so-much-more man Proietti has said "sayonara" to his acid jazz outfit Kobayashi and moved on to his Morph-Tet, a project with a darker edge to it that has Proietti and his rhythm duo backed by rotating guests. The name and title suggest a constant shifting, and yes, the line-up reconfigures track by track and the contoured, mid-tempo tunes tend to evolve at the threshold of perception. But given the record's mesmerizing miasma of shadows and unexpected elements and gestures—check the bluesy "Bottle Shaped Cage" or the meditative drone of "Verte de Fougerolles"—maybe credit should go to Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. 7.5/10 Trial Track: "Bushido" (Rupert Bottenberg) - Montreal Mirror


"Dream Scheme"

Dream scheme

The Franco Proietti Morph-tet
takes jazz to strange new places

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

“I’ve been trying to book shows that are not necessarily thematic,” says Montreal saxophonist-and-more Franco Proietti, “but there’s a reason to celebrate. We played a Christmas show, a Halloween show—when people are already in a party mood, it makes the environment that much nicer.”

Proietti has a decent reason to celebrate when his band, the Franco Proietti Morph-tet, plays O Patro Vys this week. It’s the night of his 32nd birthday, wrapping up a year that saw the release of the FPM’s debut disc, the Bongo Beat CD Morphology.

It’s also the second anniversary of the dissolution of his previous outfit, the straightforward acid jazz act Kobayashi. Proietti didn’t want to deal with a huge band again, schedules and all that, so the FPM was initially just him and his laptop, with friends spiriting in and out for shows.

“Now, I don’t like having a computer as a rhythm section, I have to say, so the drummer [Marc Béland] and bassist [Rick Rosato]—and at this point, the DJ [Andrew Kushnir] too—are all regulars now.”

Beyond that, some members of Kobayashi are among the ever-shifting support crew that informs the term “morph-tet.” The etymology, though, leads back to Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams, rather appropriate given the mercurial, evocative music on Morphology.

“I’ve always been a very lucid dreamer,” Proietti notes, “and had the craziest dreams—I’m sure my personality and some of the music are influenced by that. Actually, one of the new songs we’re about to write is directly based on a dream I had. The songs on the album, I could tell you the influence of every single one. Dreaming isn’t necessarily a direct influence on any one song, but maybe on the overall feel.”

The opening pair—the noir-ish “Lucky 13” with local sax luminary Dave Turner, and “Bushido,” with its spy-flick horn stabs and Ghost Dog-inspired rap by Omari Newton—are explicitly cinematic. “Bottle Shaped Cage,” meanwhile, is a bluesy dirge with a chain-gang vibe and Franco’s dad Ron contributing some mouth harp, while a pair of remixes—one of “The DT’s” by Proietti himself, the other a clubby version of “Lucky 13” by Milton Clark—close out the disc. “If you’d have told me five years ago that I’d have a techno-sounding song, I’d probably have laughed at you. No way!”

The dream scheme is most apparent on two particular tracks. The accordion-inflected music of “Chorophobia” has an eerie carnival atmosphere, a nod to Danny Elfman, but it’s Proietti’s surrealist tale on top that seems straight out of slumberland. Ironically, it was a bout of insomnia, caused by a construction crew outside his window, that led Proietti to improvise his lurid yarn of footwork fear. “I personally hate dancing, I’m terrified of it, so that’s probably part of it. People have responded really well to that story.”

Then there’s “Verte de Fougerolles,” this writer’s favourite track, a quasi-mystical exercise with tablas and a down-pitched melodica generating a hypnotic drone. “Verte de Fougerolles is a brand of absinthe that I like to drink,” Proietti chuckles, “and it was written after consuming said beverage, so it’s got a very, um, open-minded approach to it.

“Sometimes I overthink things in my solos. I’m terrible for thinking things through 15 steps ahead. Now, I’m not a proponent of using mind-altering substances to create, I think it’s a bit of a cop-out. But I’ve found that just having a couple of drinks will make me stop thinking so much and just play.”
- Montreal Mirror


Discography

"Morphology" LP 2008.
"LIVE! A Weekend at Centre St. Ambroise" LP 2010
"Like The Shore Is To The Ocean" LP 2011

Photos

Bio

A hard band to describe, since they are always "morphing" - The Franco Proietti Morph-tet seems to change with every show. The main line up consists of drums, bass, turntables and 3 horn players, but at any given show, guest vocalists, guitarits, harmonica players or whatever else may show up. It is not only the lineup that is in constant flux, however - the sound is as well. The main influences are jazz, hip hop and funk, but depending on the gig and the guests that evening, anything can happen.

The Morph-tet's highlights include opening for hip hop legends The Digable Planets and jazz innovators The Sun Ra Arkestra, as well as playing festivals such as the St. Ambroise Funk n' Jazz Fest (QC) and The Sunseeker's Ball (NB). Their latest CD, "Like The Shore Is To The Ocean" has been charting consistently on Earshot since its fall release.