Davy Mooney & Ko Omura - The Word (2025)

The world of jazz music has become an ideal place for collaborations between musicians from different lands and cultures. The practices of songwriting and improvisation reach beyond barriers of different languages. Guitarist Davy Mooney has long embraced having a global community in music, finding musical homes in Brazil and Japan. It was in Japan where he met a favorite musical foil, drummer Ko Omura.

After his first Sunnyside release over a decade ago, Mooney looked to expand his touring horizons by looking toward Japan. Omura was recommended by a friend and joined the guitarist on his tour. The duo formed a tight bond and began a musical partnership, which led to their 2018 recording, Benign Strangers. Though the pandemic slowed their work together, the two made sure to keep the spirit alive, capturing it on their new recording, The Word.

Mooney and Omura’s kinship formed around a balancing of contrasting styles. Mooney’s music is often darker and highly structured, while Omura’s compositions are warm and freely played. Omura’s music is inspired much by his study of Indian music and the tabla. Both musicians are highly adept melodists, writing singable tunes that pull listeners in. Programming their music together provides a perfect complement of styles.

When Mooney and Omura were finally able to reconvene, they brought together the same ensemble of brilliant musicians that they featured on Benign Strangers. Woodwind master John Ellis returns with his array of saxophones and clarinets. Pianist Glenn Zaleski and bassist Matt Clohesy are perfect in their reading and response to the varied program.

The Word provides a glimpse at where the band has evolved. The shared leader duties between Mooney and Omura allowed for an easier process in writing and recording. With that, the quintet returned to Big Orange Sheep for one of the beloved recording studio’s last sessions in June of 2024.

The recording begins with Omura’s “Sheep Wash,” an empathetic piece inspired by a story of a man throwing a sheep into a Mongolian river to be cleaned against the animal’s will. The direct piece provides a straight-forward harmony with some rhythmic twists and turns. Mooney’s “Wormcast” is a 24-bar blues that was built out of voicings that led to the tune much like the winding trails worms leave as they burrow through the ground. The main melodic figure of “The Word” fell under Mooney’s fingers as he sat through a wedding sermon. He recorded the snippet and fleshed it out into a mild swinging groover.

Omura’s “Purusha” is an intoxicating tune with a strong melody over a complex harmonic structure. The title refers to the Hindu ideology of what is beyond the physical aspect of the universe, like pure consciousness. Mooney’s “Groove for Clyde” is a tribute to his former teacher, New Orleans trumpeter/educator Clyde Kerr, Jr. The piece utilizes a difficult cycling polyrhythm in 7 over a strong bassline. A rhythmic seed is the basis for Omura’s “K.I. (Kaida Inspired),” the repetitive phrase building into the solos. Mooney’s light guitar introduces Omura’s “Ektaal,” which features the drummer on tabla on an introspective piece built off an Indian tala.

Written during his fertile composing period in the pandemic, Mooney’s “Lord and Master” utilizes a tricky 12/8 rhythmic cell in different groups and has an experimental, open solo section, highlighting Ellis’s bass clarinet. Omura returns to the tabla for his “Dattatreya,” which features free playing from the ensemble. The recording concludes with Mooney’s “Maybe,” a bossa nova written in the harmonically dense style of one of his heroes, Chico Buarque, in an uplifting way to end the recording.

Reaching across physical boundaries to find like-minded and complementary collaborators has long been Davy Mooney’s goal. His partnership with Ko Omura has been especially gratifying as each musician can highlight their strengths in conjunction with the other’s support. The Word finds Mooney and Omura in stride along with a brilliant group of New York musicians.

John Ellis - tenor & soprano saxophones, bass clarinet
Matt Clohesy - bass
Glenn Zaleski - piano
Ko Omura - drums, tabla