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Artist Feature
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Lake Tahoe Action, Artist Feature >>
This is a party idea with some legs.
Some Portland, Ore., musicians and dancers put on a Mardis Gras get-together on Fat Tuesday, March 4, 2003. Because of the date, they called themselves the March Fourth Marching Band. The party still hasn't stopped.
“It's like a joke that sticks,” said band leader and electric bass player John Averill. “The next thing you know its six and one-half years later were making records, and people sometimes (see the name of the group) and think were a marching band.”
Perhaps that's why some prefer to call the band M4.
Depending on the show, the size of the band ranges from 20 to 30 members, and that includes 12 horn players and a troupe of dancers who, when playing outdoors or in venues with high ceilings, are stilt dancers. M4 open performs onstage, but also marches.
“I've learned a lot about marching bands and the thing I've learned the most is that we're really not a marching band,” Averill said. “The mobile aspect is what we have in common with marching bands. Aside from that I don't think we have much in common other than we have drums and horns. We don't play any traditional marching band music and we don't march in formation. We're more of a mobile big band.
Another way to look at it is that instead of being the halftime entertainment, M4 is the game.
It performs Friday, Nov. 6 at the Crystal Bay Casino's Crown Room, which could rock like never before.
During a show in Portland's Crystal Ball Room, the band invited the audience to the stage. The weight of the dancing crowd broke the floor.
“No two shows are ever the same,” Averill said. “We don't' have a completely scripted show or shtick that we put on every time. We feel out the room and put out a set based on what we think might work for that situation.”
Nine different M4 members wrote the 13 tunes on its new CD, “Rise Up,” which is being celebrated on its current tour. Some music reviews say M4 sounds like the Jewish celebratory klezmer and swing jazz from the 1930s and early '40s.
“Each musician has a ton of influences,” Averill said. “I don't know what klezmer is. It's really all over the map. It's hard to describe.”
Averill spoke to Lake Tahoe Action a day before the band headed to New Orleans for the third time. He said the Crescent City is fond of M4 because its street performances and mobile aspect.
“We're not trying to be New Orleans band or a Mardi Gras band but we started off as one for one gig,” he said. “We have our own sound. We don't sound like any of the bands in New Orleans but we definitely have a lot of the influences.”
A portion of the proceeds from “Rise Up” will go to Sweet Home New Orleans, a nonprofit supporting musicians, Mardi Gras Indians and the Social Aid & Pleasure Club. 11/06/09 >> go there
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