Watch Mac DeMarco Join DOMi & JD Beck For A Tricky, Trippy Fallon Performance
It’s pretty amazing to watch the duo of DOMi & JD Beck performing together. DOMi, a French keyboardist, and Beck, a Texan drummer, were both child prodigies at their instruments, and they both have an astral sense of jazz. Together, they’ve performed with people like Thundercat, Ariana Grande, and Herbie Hancock. Earlier this year, Anderson .Paak signed the two of them, making them the first artists on his Blue Note imprint Apeshit. DOMi and Beck released their star-studded debut album Not Tight this past summer, and they’re now up for the Best New Artist Grammy. Last night, the two of them played The Tonight Show, and they brought their friend Mac DeMarco.
Mac DeMarco starred in the video for “Smile,” DOMi & JD Beck’s debut single, and he also guests on their album. On Fallon last night, DeMarco got together with DOMi and Beck to perform their collaboration “Two Shrimps,” and it was really something to see. The stage was set up to look like a fancily manicured garden, with DOMi and Beck facing each other in the back and DeMarco doing his goofy white man’s overbite dances up front. Also, DOMi played while sitting on a toilet for some reason.
Maybe you need those star connections and eye-catching gimmicks to sell jazz to people in 2022. But the performance is mostly worth watching just to see DOMi & JD Beck, who are just staggering musicians. DOMi played complicated lead chords with one hand and complicated basslines with the other. Beck busted out dizzy polyrhythms. The Fallon audience repeatedly applauded the sheer musicianship. Watch it for yourself below.
Not Tight is out now on Apeshit/Blue Note.