Hazmat Modine

Hazmat Modine operates as a New York-rooted folk collective and ethnomusicology project that mines influences across multiple decades and traditions. The ensemble specializes in material spanning the 1920s into the early 1960s, drawing on swing, klezmer, hokum jug band, blues, rocksteady, and related forms. Fronted by dual harmonicas, the group has cultivated a standing as intrepid world-music innovators. Founder Wade Schuman spent his formative years in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a city recognized for its vibrant music community, before settling in New York. Proficiency in early blues idioms opened doors for him to record alongside leading New York artists, among them a contribution to Joan Osborne’s Grammy-nominated Relish. He further collaborated onstage with Chicago native Randy Weinstein, a harmonica specialist celebrated for his distinguished performances. Fellow members comprise Joe Daley on tuba, Michael Gomez and Pete Smith on guitars, Pamela Fleming on trumpet, and Rich Huntley on drums. Unusual instruments such as the sheng, a Chinese mouth organ, and the cimbalom, a Romanian hammer dulcimer, together with singular selections drawn from Slim Gaillard, Jimmy Rogers, Jaybird Coleman, and Irving Berlin, secured the band engagements at New York’s most select venues. Mounting recognition and an expanding audience led to the preparation of their first album. Bahamut appeared in 2006, securing a position on Billboard’s Top Blues Albums chart alongside multiple international rankings. The group subsequently performed across North America and Europe, among them appearances at some of the globe’s foremost jazz festivals.