XL MUSIC

Bonerama takes on the trumpet

New Orleans band dedicated to less-appreciated brass instrument

By Parry Gettelman
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Thursday, November 20, 2008

'What's the difference between a dead snake in the road and a dead trombone player in the road?" asked Mark Mullins, one of four trombonists in New Orleans band Bonerama.

The answer: "The snake was on his way to a gig."

Mullins has plenty of those jokes, although he hasn't actually lacked for gigs. He enjoyed a 16-year tenure in Harry Connick Jr.'s band, backed Meters legend George Porter Jr. and has recorded with such artists as Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco and Joe Henry. But trombones don't always get the respect accorded trumpets and saxophones, having fewer adherents, and fewer still known for approaching the instrument with audacity and imagination.

"It's pretty easy to make a trombone not sound so good," Mullins said with a laugh, speaking by phone from his home. "That's a real easy thing to do, as we know all too well. So when you do stumble on something on the horn that sounds good, you just hold onto that and you capitalize on that. It gets a bad rap."

With some of the best players in New Orleans - the current lineup includes Mullins, Craig Klein, Steve Suter and Rick Trolsen on trombone, plus Bert Cotton on guitar, Eric Bolivar on drums and Nori Naraoka on bass - Bonerama has found ways to take the trombone into new territory. Mullins, for instance, plays through a guitar amp and has recourse to a small arsenal of pedals. The band fuses rock, funk and brass band traditions into an idiosyncratic style, covering Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy" and Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" with equal conviction. Originals on its latest album, 2007's "Bringing It Home," written by five different band members, scramble a range of influences.

Mullins started Bonerama with Klein 10 years ago and the group quickly gained an enthusiastic local following. However, with both Mullins and Klein touring in Connick's band, Bonerama's momentum was constantly interrupted. About a year and a half ago, they finally decided to concentrate on their own band and Bonerama has begun reaping the rewards.

"It's really solidified the group in a big, huge way and allowed us to move forward and take any opportunity that falls in our lap," Mullins said.

In addition to serving as the house band for HBO's Comic Relief, Bonerama recorded a post-Katrina benefit EP, "You're Not Alone," with OK Go and appeared with OK Go's Damian Kulash on "The Late Show with David Letterman" last February. Bonerama had a phenomenal summer this year, playing more than 50 shows. It makes its Austin debut Saturday at the Parish fresh from the Berlin Jazz Festival. (It was scheduled to play a Swamp Fest date here earlier this year, but flight problems intervened.)

"Not being tied to any other groups, being solely dedicated to Bonerama, we could book the heck out of it, and had the summer we've been dreaming about doing," Mullins said. "We'd been getting turned down by so many festivals we'd been trying to do for so long, and finally this year they started calling us."

The only downside is that Bonerama has been on the road so much, there's been little time to work on the next release. However, the band recently got to do some recording, and Mullins is excited about both the new material and the opportunity to experiment in the studio setting. He and his bandmates have plenty of studio experience, but all three of Bonerama's albums to date are live recordings.

"Those were fun," Mullins said. "We didn't want to overdub anything, really just kind of capture the gigs and what went down in front of people. The whole point of us doing three live records in a row was like a tip of a hat to our audience. That's what really makes us play different every night."

Bonerama's arrangements are intricate, but songs like the Klein original "Mr. Go" leave plenty of space for band members to lead each other in unexpected directions. And those are some of Mullins' favorite moments.

"The funny thing is that people (in the crowd) haven't even heard the band before, they don't know the song, they don't know where it's going to go, but we go into that uncharted territory, and it's cool - they know something happened, and they get it. It's always a fascinating thing, as a player and a performer, being on that side, and you wonder 'How do they know?' They just feel it. That's magic stuff."

Bonerama plays Saturday at the Parish with Uncle Bruno, T Bird and The Breaks, On the One and Flyjack. $20 advance, $25 door. 214 E. Sixth St. 478-6372; www.theparishroom.com.