Jazz band Corbin Andrick & Bonzo Squad have enjoyed a long time residency at The Arrogant Frog in Chicago. Led by sax player Corbin Andrick (his nickname is Bonzo) the band first found its bearings as the houseband at Lilly's, another bar in The Windy City. Agfert road testing their material on stage they cut 22 tracks in two days IV Labs studio for their self-titled debut album, after which they had to kill half of their darlings.
At first Bonzo Squad presents itself as a rather smooth jazz album that even leans to easy listening, gently rotating around the sax-keyboards axis of Andrick and Andrew Lawrence. Things start to get more interesting when bass player Andrew Vogt lays a sexy groove for Pearhofjax as the launch pad for a far more loose approach culminating in a rock guitar solo by Matt Gold. After this all bets are off and they feel free indulge into freaky flute parts for & S and Shack Dog, and invite Samy Language rapper to add some choice words to Bottom's Up.
Corbin Andrick & Bonzo Squad are musical schizophrenics who can't choose between being weird or straight. The former wins out in the end, but it was a close finish. The album's closer Baltic Sea contains the best of both worlds, with superb Floydian keyboards to boot.
Corbin Andrick & Bonzo Squad:
Corbin Andrick: saxophones, flute
Andrew Lawrence: Fender Rodes, organ, piano, Moog
Andrew Vogt: electric bass
Zack Marks: drums
Matt Gold: guitar
- Where the Wild Things Are
- Lemons
- Mind the Bubbles
- Pearhofjax
- S & S
- Shack Dog
- Zeeb
- Silent Disco
- Maybe That Was It
- Bottom's Up (feat. Samy Language)
- Baltic Sea
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