Finding the Originals

Teddy wears T-Shirt by Union military vest by Bephie Finding The Jack Moves by Jill Jones Photographs Sam Massey The Styling Beth Gibbs Originals (based out of Newark, NJ) or their audience have a clue about drive-ins, but Zee Desmondes and Teddy Powell of The Jack Moves do however seem to know a helluva lot about emotions and how to craft a rich musical landscape, skillfully layered in the origins of soul music. Their production transports the listener to a time when some of the best soul music was created. There is no denying their aptitude for delivering killer ballads and catchy riffs looping through the tracks that conjure up the iconic sounds of yesterday’s “Philly, Motown, and Minneapolis” all at once. For older music connoisseurs like myself, I immediately hear subtle references to The Philly Sound – Zee wears T-Shirt by Union Eddie Holman, The Delfonics, and The Stylistics. beanie by About The Tower Motown’s Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson make an appearance as well as the melodic and lyrical phrasings of Prince mixed with the grit of Curtis Mayfield. They’re all tastefully ensconced in Hip Hop beats, lush string, and punchy horn arrangements, The Jack Moves are playing on my ultimately creating an eclectic original sound that is car stereo as I drive for miles up the Pacific Coast fresh, new, and totally their own. Highway with no particular destination in mind. There’s something about a good soul tune, where Renowned online Hip Hop and alternative music the lead singer with a confectionary falsetto is calling website Okayplayer premiered The Jack Moves debut you “girl,” “baby,” “mama,” and talking about “making LP to its worldwide network of “in the know” music love,” with you being “the only one” – your ears just aficionados whose sophisticated palettes are very filling up with old school pillow talk: “I love you’s” to discriminating. Authenticity and truth are paramount the nines. The Jack Moves got mad scintillating game. to receiving the ultimate seal of approval from such an esteemed community. Other reputable music Wasn’t it Teena Marie who said, “Ooo la-la-la, it’s the outlets such as NPR followed suit, giving the album way you feel when you know it’s real?” Because every numerous accolades. girl knows a truly good love song ain’t never lied. Having recently come off of a tour with Ben Neither does the self-titled The Jack Moves album. It’s Harper and now working on their new album, they a dreamy escape and trip back into the good old days agreed to meet with me and discuss their journey, of first loves, soulful sentimental romance tunes, red- process, and vision. I sat down with the vocalist, light house party jams, and steamy drive-in make out multi-instrumentalist Zee Desmondes and DJ, sessions. Days seemed simpler then. beat-creator and drummer, Teddy Powell, along with their manager/producer, Jean-Pierre Plunier. I doubt that these two young millennial musicians UBIKWIST 22 FEATURES Who turned you guys onto this kind of music? in Brooklyn, Gabe Roth. And he has Daptones records: Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings! I saw some of his stuff and how they TP: I don’t know. Listening to Hip Hop, I guess. I heard it would record it all to tape. And I was like Oh! Then I kind of got growing up – listening to Hip Hop and finding the original hooked on doing things like that. We were like that for a long samples. time, right up until recently – kind of obsessed with trying to do things to tape and stuff. ZD: Just getting further down that rabbit hole and finding really rare stuff; it’s really good, and you kind of get addicted But now, it’s all kind of leveled out. When we first started it to it. It was all kind of natural. It wasn’t like let’s do this really was all off the computer; kind of what’s easiest to do. Then esoteric work; it was more like we just got kind of obsessed I tried to mess around with tape. Then I kind of realized it’s with it. It was all kind of accidental. Cause we used to make silly to have preconceptions about what sounds better when Hip Hop music together, mess around, and then we started maybe you should just be open to all of it. You know people trying to play some of the music we were finding: a lot of rare are like, “Tape. Nothing sounds like tape,” and I don’t think 45s and stuff. Now a lot of that’s on the Internet. But back then it’s true. There’s things we recorded on our phones recently, it was even harder to find. We didn’t even have the records; [working on this new] stuff that sounds better than a lot of we just had the CD compilations. We just liked playing around things we recorded in the studio. and covering the songs. We weren’t even really sure how to write stuff like that at that time. It just kind of grew from that, JP: Maybe you’ll get to hear some! We did a bunch of stuff in and we would make something and say, “Oh, that doesn’t here just writing. Ok, turn on your phone and boom. And now sound so bad.” Then eventually we made a cover and decided we’re like how did we get to that? to make a little 45 – biked it around the city and gave it to whoever would take it at the different record stores. When did you have an idea you wanted to commit to this We are both Aquarians, full time? so we are super out there. TP: Probably after we put the first 45 out. ZD: Yeah. Cause it was really like no plan, and we got a nice How do you think your generation ranks when it comes to response. We sold out of it. All of these record stores started music these days? writing blogs and a distributor wanted to take some. Then it got over to people in California. This Chicano crowd started ZD: There’s so much it seems. There’s so many people making collecting the record because it became so rare; now it’s like music, and they’re in all the different genres. There are people $200 for a 45. They always ask us to reprint it. playing Jazz now that are probably better technically, better than the greatest jazz players before. Maybe. Maybe not. That whole thing we recorded in my mom’s garage down I’m just saying there are jazz people that I don’t even know by the Jersey Shore. And then after that, it became kind of specifically, who are virtuoso players and whether their annoying because Teddy lived up by New York. Some of the recordings are as timeless and classic as John Coltrane… It people who would play with us, you know, they were from that just seems like there are people of all genres; there’s so many area too. So it became kind of necessary to get some place people making music. Soundcloud, Spotify, YouTube, it’s where we could work, and people could come through. insane. We are all just kind of impulsive – moving into the place we are still at in Newark. It was just like no plan at all. It was like So how do you two stand out? a crazy building that needed a lot of work on it. And then we were in there, and we still didn’t really know what we were ZD: (laughs) I don’t know. Sometimes it’s overwhelming to doing. even think about it. We were still into soul music, and trying to figure out how to TP: I guess we got our own sound. We sound different than make shit sound the way the old records sounded. A lot of that other bands. stuff is kind of hard to figure out – like all of the harmonies. I think you do. I think you’re more hardcore – with the reach Were you doing it digitally or doing it analog? back to the old and bringing it new. ZD: Yeah, we were using the computer at that time. ZD: Yeah. And maybe that’s like even a security blanket – just like being good at your unique thing. It’s kind of interesting about experimenting; you realize when you try to go out into It’s great you got that sound just from digital. different genres that you’re wandering out of your comfort zone… out of your little pond, you know. It can be intimidating, ZD: Yeah. And then I started to realize, like there is this dude but also it’s freeing. 23 Zee wears jacket by Guilty Parties jumpsuit by Kapital beanie by About The Tower Teddy wears jacket from JP’s Vintage W-taps jacket, T-shirt by Neue Pollution jean’s by Acne Studios UBIKWIST 24 FEATURES And how were your families when you decided to play things that I liked. One time, this guy came up to make this move into music? me and said, “Dude, you got to play something that’s not going to put me in a …” ZD: I was more of a surfer. My brother was a pro surfer. My mom is an artist. My dad was kind of pressured into Sad mood his career path, so he’s always kind of had my back.

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