Anke Dreyer on Hazmat Modine: Style mix á la carte
Friday June 5,2009
After
attending their concert in Mannheim, Anke Dreyer writes up his thoughs on a
folk band which mixes many genres.
The band's name is a mixture of "hazmat" which is an abbreviation for "hazardous
materials" and "modine" which is a gigantic hot-air blower. This name fits.
The energy which the musicians set free with their instruments: tuba, trumpet,
2 mouth-organs, saxophone is, of course, "hazardous materials" for body and
soul.
The head, arranger, singer and mouth-organ player Wade Schumann describes
their music: "It's a mixture of all music styles that I love." And he loves
a lot: klezmer, blues, jazz, gypsy, soul, rock. The band mixes all styles into
a harmonical cocktail which swings, gives a good feeling and let the audience
dance. A wild mixture! This is also the message of Wade Schumann: "The people
who visit our concerts should have fun." The musicians also have fun and this
emotions stick on to the people. Danger of infection!
Schumann easily has everything under control: he dances on stage, jumps, plays
mouth-organ lying on stage, chats with his band and the audience. His voice
has an enormous range, sometimes it sounds like Louis Armstrong, then partly
as soul voice Otis Redding, partly as the voice of Tom Waits or Randy Newmann.
Schumann grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He comes from a Jewish-Baptist family.
At the age of 10 he started to play the mouth-organ. "I was influenced by mouth-organ
players as DeFord Bailey, Peg Leg Sam. And in the late 70th I heard Paul Butterfield.
Butterfield is a great mouth-organ player and singer." Music is just a hobby
for Schumann. "I make music just for fun not for a career or for money. It
is just for fun. If there comes a time that I don't have fun anymore in making
music I stop it." Schumann earns his money with his second passion. He is a
painter and an art historian at art academy in New York. Music is just a hobby
despite of the success of Hazmat Modine and nobody is more surprised about
this success than Schumann himself.
After
attending their concert in Mannheim, Anke Dreyer writes up his thoughs on a
folk band which mixes many genres.