DDAT

NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concert” seeks music video submissions every year from amateur musicians across the country. The Native-led band, The Delbert Anderson Trio made it to the final 10 of the “10 More Tiny Desk Contest Entries We Loved.”

Rachel Horn and Benajin Naddaf-Hafrey curated the top -10 list and chose The Delbert Anderson Trio, a jazz fusion band led by Navajo trumpeter Delbert Anderson. The announcement of the top 10 includes a note from the NPR website about Anderson’s selection: “The song ‘Roadrunner’ makes it evident that these artists also share a forward-thinking restlessness and a refusal to be parceled into neat boxes.”

Anderson told ICTMN the music video was very experimental and rap artist Def-I (who joined them on the song) was still tinkering with the lyrics the day of recording.

“The end result was an improvisational song about life on the road as a musician. The trio played very well and Def-i was flawless,” said Anderson.

With the inclusion of Def-I, the newly formed, DDAT (Delbert Anderson Trio and Def-i) has received a ton of positive feedback about the video, which has encouraged the band to keep producing music together.

Anderson says, “Although we didn’t win overall, the guys were happy with the honorable mention.” - Indian Country

In a recent round-up of their favorite submissions to the 2016 Tiny Desk Contest series, NPR selected the song "Roadrunner" as one of the 10 best.

Performed by the Delbert Anderson Trio and Albuquerque-based rapper Def-i, the track is, in two words, very lit, and absolutely oozes with indigenous musical talent.
Lit Indigenous Jazz Band Gives Incredible Performance for NPR's Tiny Desk Contest
Source: Mic/YouTube

Although the video — submitted as part of NPR's Tiny Desk competition, where winners get to perform their own taped concert at the outlet's Washington, D.C., office and tour the country with NPR — did not get top honors, it earned special praise and an honorable mention.
Lit Indigenous Jazz Band Gives Incredible Performance for NPR's Tiny Desk Contest
Source: Mic/YouTube

It also encouraged Def-i and the Trio to perform together more: Indian Country Today Media Network reports that they have since united to form a new group, DDAT. "Although we didn't win overall, the guys were happy with the honorable mention," Anderson, who is Navajo, told ICTMN.
Lit Indigenous Jazz Band Gives Incredible Performance for NPR's Tiny Desk Contest
Source: Mic/YouTube

Indigenous artists have seen something of a renaissance in recent years. From Canadian DJ crew A Tribe Called Red and Apsáalooke rapper SupaMan, to prominent features on TV shows like MTV's Rebel Music, the popularization of indigenous pop music is gaining well-deserved attention from mainstream listeners.
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Now, the Delbert Anderson Trio and Def-i have taken a big step toward joining these hallowed ranks. Check out their full video below: - Identities.Mic

Def-i And The Delbert Anderson Trio, 'Roadrunner'

Recorded at the Sunflower Theatre in Cortez, Colo., "Roadrunner" is a collaboration between Albuquerque rapper Def-i (given name: Christopher Bidtah) and a jazz trio led by trumpeter Delbert Anderson. Def-i and Anderson's trio each count indigenous music of the American Southwest among their influences, but that's not the only reason this project melds together so well; "Roadrunner" makes it evident that these artists also share a forward-thinking restlessness and a refusal to be parceled into neat boxes. —RH - NPR

Groove warriors
By Richard Reyes
GALLUP
—
The distinctly Southwestern bounce of the Delbert Anderson
Trio brought to mind an old-timey cartoon train bobbing through the desert, puffing smoke to the beat.Like a steam engine chugging to a start, the drums pumped slowly and gradually increased in tempo. Then the upright entered with a swaggering bass line, and the trumpet came in with an eerie, .uttering melody. Then, as if it had too much to drink, the trumpet melody began to sway all over.
“You can see all the squiggly lines on the composition,” trumpet player Delbert Anderson explained after the band performed the song at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Gallup Aug. 20.
Anderson wrote the song while on a train, so the shaking and frantic
turns of the locomotive came through in the melody.
“That’s the reason why the song does not sound normal,” he joked.
The song, titled “Iron Horse Gallup,” tells the story of the trio - which
includes drummer Nicholas Lucero and bassist Mike McCluhan -
disembarking from the Indian Capital of the World via train through the Navajo Nation toward Los Angeles and back again. You can hear their arrival in L.A. as the song shifts into a faster tempo and jazzier sound. The trumpet paints a picture of a wild party further emphasized by a boisterous drum solo. Navajo chants meet modern jazz The Delbert Anderson Trio -which formed in Aztec about 3 1/2 years ago -plays several songs with a similar duality. They started out playing jazz standards but quickly went into composing their
own songs.“We started digging a little deeper into our own cultures,” Anderson explained. “For me it was the Navajo tribe. I did a lot of study on early Navajo music -all the way down to when it was just chants.”
The song “New York Navajo” from their album “Manitou” exemplifies
this. It opens with a man singing what sounds to be a traditional Navajo song. The voice and Anderson’s trumpet perform a sort of call and response between those traditional melodies and modern jazz. Anderson said Navajo chants tend to have a natural swing to them, which provided the perfect transition into jazz.
On one side you have jazz, which was born in the United States, and on the other side you have indigenous melodies. So in a way, the Delbert Anderson Trio is playing an ultra American sound.
Another example of this is the song “Groove Warrior.” The opening
beat is reminiscent of a drum circle and the trumpet again sounds like a wavering Navajo melody -for the music nerds out there, they rely heavily on the pentatonic scale. But things take a twist as the bass comes in with a psychedelic effect like a Herbie Hancock song. That’s when the drums and trumpet kick into a jazzy aesthetic.
Though they’ve been labeled a Navajo band, they are multi-cultural and pull together influences from several places. Lucero brings a funky, Latin sound on the drums while McCluhan is a jam band player who takes his inspiration from the Grateful Dead.
“I think jazz tends to be a little intellectual, and that’s the beauty of it,
but when it comes to an average listener, I think we make it more of a visceral kind of experience,” Lucero said. “We have the heavy bass lines and the funk drums, and you can feel it a little more.”
Hip-hop fusion If that weren’t enough of a musical cocktail, Albuquerque
-
ba
sed rapper
Def
-
i, the Shiprock
-
born Christopher Bidtah, joined the trio during their
Gallup performance, fusing hip-hop into their sound.
Together they’re known as DDAT. They met at a festival one year and
Bidtah performed some spoken word atop their music. Then they wrote a song together, “Roadrunner,” and recorded a video of their performance at the Sunflower Theater in Cortez, Colorado. They entered the video in NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest. Although DDAT didn’t win, NPR recognized their video with an honorable mention in March. “'Roadrunner’ makes it evident that these artists also share a
forward-thinking restlessness and a refusal to be parceled into neat
boxes,” NPR stated. DDAT is recording an album that Anderson hopes to release before the end of the year. They performed some of their songs at the church and illustrated one of the coolest aspects of both jazz and hip-hop: improvisation. Between trumpet solos, Bidtah freestyled while interacting with the crowd, commenting on the things people wore as well as the venue’s
decor. A clearly proficient wordsmith, he incorporated religious themes in his rhymes and spit ridiculous tongue-twisters.
A poet herself, Tammy Iralu, a member of the Church of the Holy Spirit and organizer of the concert, said she enjoyed Bidtah’s poetry. Iralu said a local family funded the show, so audience members were asked to make a donation to benefit Battered Families Services Inc., which helps survivors of domestic violence, and All Together in Dignity Fourth World, which is dedicated to literacy efforts locally.
DDAT will be going on tour through the West in September, starting
with a show at 7 p.m. Sept. 13 at the Totah Theater in Farmington.
Check their Facebook page for more details and dates. Def-i also recently released a video on YouTube for the song “The Land
of Enfrackment” in solidarity with all nations taking a stand against the Dakota Access oil pipeline. - Gallup Independent