John Moriconi is known through out the blues scene for his blue trumpet, the one he played in the Chicken Slacks until he left them a few weeks ago. But, how many people know that Moriconi has been working on a documentary soundtrack? Read further and get clued in.
The project is a documentary about an organization in New York City. The documentary will be called New York Says Thank You The Movie. Moriconi will be working with musicians Diane Blue, Bruce Bears, and Micah Christian. Moriconi’s girlfriend, Julia Mudloff, is Director of the National 9-11 Flag Tour which works hand in hand with an organization called New York Says Thank You. Mudloff was Moriconi’s connection to this project
LA Producer/director Scott Rettberg will film the documentary. The New York Says Thank You organization goes around to different parts of the United States around the anniversary of 9-11 to rebuild an area that has been hit by some kind of disaster. “They help rebuild as a way of paying it forward in remembrance to all the people who came out to New York and helped out after 9-11,” Moriconi explained.
The soundtrack will augment the film with a selection of Americana music. The film is going to show different scenes from different locations where New York Says Thank You has been sent to help. “One location,” Moriconi said, “is down in the New Orleans area. They helped out there about four or five years ago after Hurricane Katrina.”
Moriconi and the other players will record “Amazing Grace,” “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen, “Man Of Constant Sorrow” by early bluegrass pioneer Ralph Stanley, Arlo Guthrie’s “Highway In The Wind” and music reminiscent of pre-war sharecropper early blues with field holler techniques. Other songs will be “Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen” by Louis Armstrong and the traditional song “I Never Got To See New Orleans.”
Moriconi has been a busy player lately. After three years with the Chicken Slacks, Moriconi decided he wanted to freelance around the scene. “Rather than having the ball and chain of a band, it frees me up to be more of an independent player, an independent performer and opens me up to other musical possibilities. It’s about freedom,” he said.
These days, Moriconi works with teenage drummer/vocalist Danny Banks, Mike Null, and harp player/blues chanteuse Diane Blue. “It’s all going to be blues-based, but it’s different situations each time,” the trumpeter began.
“Danny mixes it up. He does some vocals, and he’ll throw in some rock chestnuts like “Barefootin’” but he’ll throw in some blues stuff as well.”
Moriconi likes to work with Diane Blue for her mix of R&B and blues when she plays down at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge. The trumpet man will be playing with her in the spring when she entertains Italy’s blues outfit Morbioli for five weeks in the states. “That’s going to be pretty much blues, with me and Bruce MaGrath as part of the horn section. He’s a sax player. Jimmy Capone from Bellevue Cadillac will be on sax as well.”
Mike Null was with Moriconi in the Chicken Slacks up until last August. Then Null went over to the cosmopolitan city of Shanghai, China with a four-piece band for a three-month residence at a place called House of Blues and Jazz. When Null came back in December, he and Moriconi decided to team up on occasion to play some blues.
Moriconi earned the nickname Johnny Blue Horn by playing a blue trumpet. “Most trumpets you see are either gold or silver-plated or nickel-plated, but this was a particular line from a manufacturer, Holton, a Maynard Ferguson model. When I came across it 13 years ago, for a limited time they brought out this line called Admiral and it came in different colors. The place where I went to had a blues one, and I tried it out and fell in love with it and bought it, and I haven’t played another horn since.”
Moriconi graduated from Connecticut School of Broadcasting in 1988, but he was too tied up to go into broadcasting. He has done some voiceover work, like the Boston Globe’s automated voice answering
machines. “I don’t do very much of it,” he said. “At some point I’ll get back out into the field and find some work that way.”
www.newyorksaysthankyouthemovie.com
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