Moore performing at WNHH FM.
Fresh off an NYC premiere, Johnathan Moore picked up his bow, turned on his BOSS RC-600 Loop station, and transformed into a one-man orchestra.
Moore, a 27-year-old Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School and Southern grad who is making a career out of a distinctive approach to cello, made that transformation Thursday in the WNHH FM studio.
He was performing on the station’s “Acoustic Thursday @ Studio 51” program. He brought along the cello he’s been playing since he was a kid growing up in a musical New Haven family, along with the machine he uses to layer different parts of his original compositions in live performance.
Moore brought along the machine last April as well when he first performed on “Acoustic Thursday.” That time the machine broke, and he played a more traditional set of single-track plucked, slapped and bowed passages.
The machine was working this time around, enabling Moore to show what makes his music different from that of other cellists’: The way he lays down a rhythm or theme, clicks his foot to have it continue to play on a loop, then builds new parts, loops them, and continues to play on top of them.
You often see guitarists, for instance, do that. But rarely cellists.
Moore decided to apply the technique to cello as a junior at Coop. One day strings teacher Nick Neumann brought a loop station into the class. “You guys wanna mess with this?” he asked.
They did.
“I’d seen other musicians” use loop pedals, “but not cello,” Moore recalled. “I was messing with distortion pedals at the time and chorus pedals, because my father is a bass player.”
Soon Moore and his cellist buddies Luis and Gabe were creating a multi-part piece called “Journey” on it.
Gabe and Luis took their music in other directions after that. Moore kept perfecting the loop technique for cello to amplify his emerging blend of classical, gospel, hip-hop, funk, and, starting in college, jazz elements. He built a repertoire of originals, some more improvised, some more fully composed, with a core missions as a solo musician who can build a full sound.
He has been making a living out of it, performing and holding residencies in Connecticut, New York, and Florida. Last month saw the premiere of a project he’s been working on for two years called “Pyramid.” He composed and performs the music in conjunction with a friend’s dance company (called It’s Showtime NYC). They performed the premiere at Manhattan’s Guggenheim Museum. Click here to watch an Instagram clip.
On “Acoustic Thursday,” Moore previewed three untitled new pieces. The first was a composed work inspired by daily walks he takes, during which music ideas come to him. The second was more freestyle, without the loops. He finished with a more multi-layered piece drawing on a wider variety of rhythms, which he plans to include on an album he’s currently working on with an increased palette of genres.
“There’s another side of this cello that nobody has heard,” he teased. Stay tuned.
Click on the video below to hear Johnathan Moore perform and discuss his work on WNHH FM’s “Acoustic Thursday @ Studio 51.” Click here to listen to a clearer, better-balanced version of his music on his Instagram page.
Previous “Acoustic Thursday @ Studio 51” performances:
• Ceschi
• Joshua Roman
• Wally
• Israel Corona-Galan, Brendan Castro & Matthew Munzner
• Brandt Taylor & Chris DePino
• New Haven Kapelye
• Shellye Valauskas and Dean Falcone
• Brian Ember
• Sketch Tha Cataclysm
• MJ Bones
• Johnathan Moore
• Charlie Widmer
• Sam Carlson
• Steve Mednick
• Frank Critelli