OCTOBER 31, 2006

GALACTIC: Galactic drummer Stanton Moore talks about new record, multiple side projects.

While Galactic — the funk-jazz-rock fusion band out of New Orleans for the past decade — usually swings through town just once a year, drummer Stanton Moore seems to be here every three months or so, playing with musically diverse acts each time.

In the past year, he's performed dates at the Catalyst with Galactic and then with metal band Corrosion of Conformity; he's also been at the Kuumbwa with Freaquinox, now called MG5, a funky supergroup featuring some of the biggest names in the funk/jazz scene today.

And he just released a new solo album with two of his MG5 comrades, organist Robert Walter of Greyboy Allstar and 20th Congress fame and Will Bernard on guitar. The Stanton Moore Trio's album "III" hit stores Sept. 26. The trio opens for Galactic tonight at the Catalyst, although with Brian Coogan on organ.

"One project doesn't fulfill all my musical wants," said Moore, a New Orleans native who grew up absorbing the myriad musical influences surrounding him. "Playing with different people, one group offsets the other. I learn things from the other projects I do, and it makes me a better player."

It's rare to find a drummer that commands the attention on stage that Moore does. His supremely groove-heavy style also incorporates the strength and power of a rock drummer; indeed, he's like Led Zeppelin skinman John Bonham in that regard. Moore gets so into certain Galactic songs on stage that he often stands up behind his drums while pounding on his cymbals and toms to underscore a particular high point of a song.

Yet he can also play at volumes just above a whisper. His sense of dynamics serves him well, and his Galactic bandmates are always keyed in to what he's doing, whether they're playing straight New Orleans funk, driving rock or soft melodic jazz.

"We thoroughly absorb different styles of music until it feels natural," said Moore when asked how Galactic manages to pull together different genres of music without sounding disjointed. "A lot of what I'm doing is trying to maximize simple rhythms. I break things down to the basics, which can be turned into music by the inflections you put on it. Things don't have to be complicated to be musical."

Galactic has been an instrumental band since their longtime singer Theryl "Houseman" DeClouet left the band in 2004 — although he didn't sing on every song. They released their last album in 2003, so the group has had some time to return to their instrumental roots and also to think about what to do with their next studio project, which is currently in the works.

"The new record is coming along great," Moore said. "It's gonna have a bunch of MCs on it, people like Lyrics Born, Lateef the Truthspeaker and Ladybug from Digable Planets. It's us playing like we play with them laying down rhymes. The producer for the album is this guy Count, who's worked on a lot of the Quannum projects."

Quannum Records is the home of San Francisco Bay Area hip-hop acts like Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, DJ Shadow and Lateef.

The new Galactic record is pretty heavy on production so far, Moore said, so he took some time to record his trio's album in the completely opposite way. He booked a few days at Preservation Hall, a musically hallowed concert hall in New Orleans where Moore and Galactic have played many an all-night Jazz Fest gig. He went in with guitarist Bernard, Hammond B-3 man Walter and a superior horn section with Skerik on sax and Mark Mullins on trombone. In the big empty hall, the vibe was perfect.

"I always loved the sound in there," Moore said about Preservation Hall. "I wanted to make something organic, with no overdubs and simple production. What you hear is three or five guys in the same room with no headphones. The focus is on the playing."

The result is a raw record full of emotion and a heavy backbeat, capped off by a stirring three-song triptych — "Water From an Ancient Well," Led Zep's "When the Levee Breaks" first written in 1929 by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy about the Great Mississippi Flood of '27 and the spiritual "I Shall Not Be Moved" — in a tribute to the recovery of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. - Graham Haworth