Customer Reviews

We Saw a Bozo Under the Sea

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What a trip! Almost 30 years after the end of Zoot Horn Rollo's tenure with the Magic Band, he picks up almost seemingly where he left off with this startling debut. I say seemingly because he's actually done quite a bit in that time, which has resulted in a matured, modern, fresh approach to composition and the guitar. Because of this, don't expect another Trout Mask Replica.. there can never be another one of those, nor should there be.. if Mallard picked up where the Magic Band left off, think of this as everything Mallard could have been, if they had a couple of decades to hone their chops and material. OK, this is already sounding strained.. you can't really relate this to anything else. I'll say that Beefheart fans will most likely enjoy it, because it has its own brand of heady, quirky, angular melodies crafted by musicians with terrifying chops. Unlike Beefheart recordings, however, this shows a breadth of textures and styles, with each piece having a distinct composition and method unto itself, defying categorization of the album as a whole.
Zoot has picked up the baritone guitar and made it sing.. not a lot of people have ever heard this instrument, tuned halfway between a guitar and a bass, and this album is worth the price of admission alone to hear this unusual instrument played in a way it probably has never been played before.
There's also a ton of ripping electric slide guitar on this album, so for you tech-heads there's a lot to listen to, axe-wise.
Master drummer Gregg Bendian creates more than ample air and punch where it's needed, his drumming and vibe-work is a real high point of the album. Imagine sort of a cross between Elvin Jones and Trilok Gurtu.
But the compositions are where this album really shines. Jagged and odd-metered, they are bordering on Monk-like angularity, but electric, refined, and rocking. If you're already a Beefheart fan or are just open-minded and like a new kind of music, give your ears a treat and expose them to Zoot's new album.

After a career of teaching, and sufficiently removed from his magical (and intense) career with Captain Beefheart, Zoot whipped up some compositions and had some friends of his record them. If you like "difficult" music with a sense of humor (ala Frank Zappa, Dixie Dregs, Henry Cow, etc.) you'll like this one.

Zoot wrote these songs with MIDI sofware, and used the MIDI tracks as the blueprint to record the material with live musicians. The result sounds like a very tight band that has rehearsed the material for months, when in fact most of them had never met. One could call this a successful experiment.

This record is not "Trout Mask Replica Part Two" - Beefheart fans who are expecting that will be disappointed with this material. But it is definitely not "mainstream" either. It's as enigmatic as Zoot himself.

Usually when I listen to a "This is a member of the XYZ band" album, I am ultimately disappointed by expectation. Not only does the member's new band have no resemblance to the old, but there is nothing worthy of identity in the new sound.

I was supernaturally unexpectedly surprised by the Zoot Horn Rollo CD. All instrumental with a wide range of jazzy-nut sort-a compositions that made me think "hey, this is pretty cool..." One of the best music CDs I have purchased in years, probably because it was such a pleasant surprise. The only thing I have to compare it to is what used to be good about Jean Luke Ponty...in some of his more unpredictable moments -- and that is a stretch.

What more to say but i listen to it all the time between Zappa, Tonio K., Peter Gabriel, The Weasels, XTC, NIN, Tom Waits and Bocelli. Go figure.

These fourteen instrumentals are very jazzy, quirky with a lot of unexpected turns and phrases. It reminds me a lot of Larry Coryell. They are tight arrangements, mostly around 5 minutes long, without much jamming and noodling.

I don't think I will grow to love this music the way I do Zappa's Hot Rats, but I do like it.

This is probably not the solo album one would expect from Captain Beefheart's former "glass finger guitar player," since he mainly is associated with the legendary guitar sound and playing on tunes like "Moonlight on Vermont" and "The Spotlight Kid."
Close to 30 years after having left the Magic Band to form the group "Mallard," who released two albums in the 70's, he seems to appear out of nowhere with an unexpected and surprising kind of solo release.
All tracks are composed by Zoot Horn Rollo and, with the exception of three short guitar tracks, feature a rhythm section consisting of drums (Gregg Bendian) and an equal amount of electric bass (Dave Lucas) and acoustic bass (Mark Schneider.) Besides rhythm instruments and solo guitar, three tracks feature vibraphone (Bendian,) two tracks feature saxophone (Dave O'Toole,) one track features violin (Brian Price) and another harmonica (Tony Proveaux.)
To simply categorize this music as "jazz" would be misleading. There aren't any free jams, though there is a meaningful amount of improvisation within certain frames; guitar solos--mostly played over one or few chords, and sometimes backed up by an overdubbed rhythm guitar--are often played over a written bass line and drum pattern.
The qualities and styles of the compositions vary, but they're mostly in 4/4 (with a few exceptions of 6/4.) The melodies and instrumental parts are to large extent written out and well arranged - it's not just 16 bars of melody before solos take off. At times, certain 70's guitar dominated FZ numbers come to mind.
The musical performances are entertaining and, with (particularly Bendian's) creative ideas, striving towards an open-minded approach, but the instrumentalists are by no means leading virtuosos, though obviously trained and experienced.
After the release of "We Saw a Bozo under the Sea," 53 year old Zoot Horn Rollo (a.k.a. Bill Harkleroad) said this about his own guitar playing: "I used to play everything in a hyperventilated way. Now I've learned to pay attention to the full duration of each note."
This is a good way to describe the difference between his guitar playing now and during the Beefheart years. Certainly the two musical styles can't be compared, but I still find this quote to be a good example of giving people an idea of the direction in which ZHR's musicianship has developed.
I'm glad to have bought this album - it is by no means uninspiring.

This is one of the best albums I have heard in years. It is obvious that Zoot Horn Rollo has listened to a lot of jazz and it permeates this music, but in the end, this is a highly personal album, with a totally unique style. All of the compositions and playing are first rate. It is beautiful, interesting, compelling music.

Hard to describe it any better than what another reviewer wrote saying "Allan Holdsworth / Bill Frisell / Sonny Sharrock with a sprinkling of Frank Zappa". By the way another reviewer missed one of the prominent instruments on this album: baritone guitar. Pretty important part of the mix here.

Extremely well recorded and produced, perfect music to play in your ship, bouncing from asteroid to asteroid. Let's put it this way - it's the best solo effort ever by any ex-member of Beefheart bands.

I would give 5 stars but I can tell my ears will grow tired of this CD after 20-25 listenings. Then it will have to sit on the shelf eight months or a year before I can take it again. So that's 4 stars. 5 stars I reserve for albums I could listen to everyday for the rest of my life.

MISTER Zoot Horn Rollo put together a really good CD, it is avant garde-ish electric jazz guitar, with a bit of blues thrown in. One of the other reviewers likened his music to Larry Coryell (his old stuff),which is on the money.

Don't just press play and walk away. You have to get to know this record because it's not background music. The songs are so thick that you can listen to them in mono and feel like you have a $2000, 6.1 channel system.

In the past few years there have been quite a few recordings by alumni of the Magic Band, and lots of other folks covering Beefheart songs, and all of them are worth listening to. But I have found myself wishing there would be something that carries the Beefheart sensibility forward rather than just reworking the past, and this record is it. It's not, as other reviewers have noted, Trout Mask Replica, and that's just as well. This is the logical extension of that music brought into the future--all the angular, fractured elements of that earlier music, but aged in the wine of jazz. Rollo's guitar playing is consistently surprising and interesting, and his compositions are charmingly cockeyed. My one quibble is that the rest of the band, although perfectly talented, play in a more conventional way, and that keeps the thing from taking off as strongly as it might have with more adventurous musicians. Still, it's a terrific CD and very welcome.