by John BushThe ranks of jazzy drum'n'bass swelled to a maneagable degree with the debut of Mocean Worker, the recording alias of jazz producer Adam Dorn. Dorn's father Joel was one of the stalwart producers at Atlantic Records during the 1960s and '70s, helming sessions by Coltrane and Mingus as well as pop records like Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly, " Bette Midler's debut album and the Allman Brothers' Idlewild South. Adam, a bass player and vocalist, studied at Berklee College of Music and worked extensively in the music industry as well, with artists ranging from David Sanborn to Hal Willner to Chaka Khan. Father and son have also produced archival reissues released by their own 32 Records (the catalogue also proved helpful when Dorn began sampling sources like Mahalia Jackson and Slim & Slam's Slam Stewart).
The Mocean Worker project came about almost by accident, the results of a seris of half-serious recording sessions. After realizing the quality of the music he'd created, Dorn released his first Mocean Worker album Home Movies from the Brain Forest in 1998 on the punk label Conscience. Dorn moved to the Island subsidiary Palm Pictures for his second, Mixed Emotional Features in 1999. Aural & Hearty was issued the following year.