Don Moye dicsusses the reaction to his unique outfit.

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Don Moye on playing as a soloist or in a group.

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Don Moye discusses the preparation involved with a large outfit.

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Q: “I find it joyously uplifting to listen to your band but I’m sure there are many people that hate it, I’m sure there must be. They’d turn around and say ‘ugh, all that noise!’ and when they see you set up on stage – you must have what, three hundred instruments of one kind or another – and they’d be turned off by the theatrical aspects because they think that jazz is some kind of music that you go into a bar to hear and you have a drink and all that. What sort of reactions do you find, and the members of the band find?”

A: “Well, we haven't gotten into many hateful reactions, but we've got quite a variety of reactions over the years. But usually, people if they aren’t familiar with the music, just the visual aspects of it is enough to more of kind of pull them in or lure them a little bit to at least get their attention, you know. And then by the time we're finished playing, chances are we’ve played something that ... at one point or another, we’ve played something that they can relate to on some level, you know. I mean, people, they may not like the music and they may not understand it. But they can't deny that it's well done and that it is, you know, it’s original and all that. So we're not interested in trying to, you know, win people over or convince them or anything. We just want to present what we're doing on the highest level possible and then after that, they can judge for themselves, you know. Because, you know, people they deserve to have some kind of a choice about the whole thing. You know, we don't want to bombard them with a wall of sound or, you know, real high level amplification or anything like that. We want to do all different kind of things and have, you know, dynamic ranges. Present the total spectrum of the music, and then, like I said, after that they can choose for themselves, you know.”