Too Many Zooz

In the interview for Fashion & Psyché magazine at the Paleo Festival 2015 the three band members are passing a joint. Although the YouTube videos of the group busking NYC subway station show different number of members there are officially three. We learn that if there is a leader then it is the white guy with different color hair in each video. The drummer is consistent throughout, and the heavyset trumpet player does most of the talking, he speaks to the audience at shows, and he appears to be coolest of all playing with one hand in his pocket and virtually screaming discourse through his trumpet. Crowds love him.

When the baritone saxophone player, Leo P, does speak we learn it is his idea for some ten years to assemble the musicians and looking without really knowing what kind of drummer he'd have, he did want brass instruments to come out of the school band reputation and be cool.

Mission accomplished.

Leo P wants his music to be a way of talking to each other. Scream conflicting viewpoints at each other is more like it. Some songs are clearly arguments from different points of view, or sound where rhythm becomes melody gets worked up and carried away and yells, with trumpet steady as rhythm, then both resolve satisfyingly to harmony then trumpet takes over melody and sax falls to rhythm. Leo P talks about his reason for liking the subway. What he does not say is that he could not have chosen a better venue to burst through the floorboards bypassing customary channels, pure talent and raw honed skill taking over a space and mesmerizing commuters. People actually stop to take it all in. Nothing could vault talent faster than that to be seized by starving appreciative audiences. Due to choosing NYC subways he is hero to music lovers in London before he is well known in the U.S.

The interviewer asks if they've every been arrested  and Leo P answers, yes, just now in Paris. Their first trip. During the subway performance there the little children in the Paris station cover their ears and move away. Full performance, Rennes metro station, TransMusicales Festival 2014.

When asked what their craziest show the band agreed London where blessedly English is spoken and the people there are forefront on musical scenes. Reliably, they will pick out the things worth paying attention.  Recored by cell phone, parts shake because for sections the photographer cannot hold steady from dancing. Parts you have to turn away from the monitor or have your eyeballs shaken loose. The patrons at the club are all familiar with the music. They paid to get in and they're eager to see them. That is what makes London different. The kids vocalize with the instrumentation mixing in with the recording because they know very well the somewhat perverse melodies.

The live shows are remarkable. London full concert part two is better than part one that takes a bit to get wound up.

I do not care for blaring brass but I love this and I cannot get this music out of my mind. All my musical thought presently are these strange conflicting melodies. I downloaded my favorites and spent more than I have all year. I thought at first these guys really are made for busking, they must be seen live and not so good for devices, the moves that Leo P busts right there in front of people do not translate to stage as well, none of it shows in the London video and that is a good part of fascination. But I'm wrong. They're fine in playlists. It's a stomping kind of jazz reminiscent of Benny Goodman but much more raw, harsh and intensified.

Ace of Spades had this in their sidebar. I've been hooked since.