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Hello from Australia.I am the presenter/producer of a jazz, blues, improvised music (and whatever else I want to play should the whim grab me) program on PBS-FM in Melbourne. A few months ago, Saul Zavache, a pleasant young man from central America gave me a copy of Bozo Allegro's "The Revolver Suite" to play on my program. May I say how much I enjoyed it and how much I enjoyed playing extracts on my program. Jazz with an intelligent sense of humour - not enough of it!
According to founder and bassist Mark Browning Milner, BOZO allegro is a
Minneapolis-based rock-jazz horn band. Which means that these are boomer-aged musicians schooled
on pop music, jazz charts, Philip Glass, Frank Zappa, fusion and everything in between. In
practice, they have developed a sense of slick, tight arrangements that show off polished
chops, a studio-savvy ensemble sound, and just enough tongue-in-cheek humor to sound hip.
The REVOLVER Suite is their paean to The Beatles. Milner has taken the classic album
Revolver and attempted to recast it as a "chronological development of African-American
popular music". But in Milner's hands, everything is homogenized so that the "spiritual"
twist on "Eleanor Rigby", the "big band" take on "Yellow Submarine", and the "bebop" jaunt
through "She Said She Said" all seem to run together. Milner has a composition degree from
Berklee College of Music, and much of this sounds like an academic exercise based on a
schoolbook sense of form. These are arrangements that might easily emerge from the bandstand
at a wedding. Something to connect with the young folks while keeping the old folks' toes
tapping. Hit the "Blues" or "Reggae" key on a cheap electric keyboard to get pre-canned drum
parts and you get some sense of how these arrangements come off.
To read Michael's trashing of Relentlessly Cheerful, visit that album's
review page.
Heard The REVOLVER Suite on a local college radio station here in Independence,
Oregon (near Salem), and once I got off the road I popped the name into "Yahoo" to find out more. Happily,
your website came up. I'm very happy to discover your band - it's the sort of music I'd be doing if I
had a band now I used to play in a band; it's a long story). To say the very least, it is my kind of music.
I checked Amazon to see if your CDs were there - the two most recent are,but it looks to me like I could
get them cheaper if I order them directly from you. Such an incentive! Thanks for having the website
available, and thanks especially for the music!
BOZO allegro - Artist of the Week. It has been said that jazz is an acquired taste. If this is the case, the Revolver Suite is an excellent starting point. BOZO allegro composer/leader Mark Browning Milner had the idea of jazzing up the Beatles' Revolver album. Each song from that 1966 classic is presented in order and corresponds to a certain period within the jazz genre. The first song "Taxman" is done in the style of the earliest African jazz form. Different styles such as ragtime, bebop and blues follow in chronological order, ending with "Tommorow Never Knows" being played in the hip-hop style of today.
A particularly interesting aspect is that the melodies of some of the Beatles songs are buried within the jazz sound. This makes it seem as if you are hearing jazz while subliminally taking in the Beatles tunes. It takes a second or two to catch on to tunes of this kind and the novelty is effective when it finally hits you. Other songs are instantly recognizable. Can you imagine (no John Lennon pun intended) "Here, There and Everywhere" played Dixieland-style? It's strange, but it works.
While there are a few numbers that sound like background music on the Lido deck of the Love Boat, this disc is mostly hip and fun. In addition to the songs themselves, these Roseville-based musicians are standouts in their own right. If you are a fan of jazz, the Beatles or just something cool and unusual, you have to check this out.
Su due perni ruota l'esistenza di Mark Browning Milner, chitarrista americano qui purtroppo misconosciuto:
Beatles e jazz. E allora, perch non cercare di mettere assieme le due cose, con un ambizioso progetto che
unisca i Fab Four e l'eclettismo jazzato di Mark?
Nasce con questi perversi pensieri di accoppiamenti pericolosi la Revolver Suite, in cui la band di Milner,
chiamata BOZO allegro, sceglie la via pi tortuosa per innovare il disco forse pi bello degli scarafaggi -
Revolver, appunto - e far s che dopo una tonificante sciacquata riacquisti quello smalto che si addice
ad un evergreen.
I nove Bozos lasciano invariata la sola scaletta dell'LP, intaccando con avidit tutto il resto:
immergono She Said She Said in un frizzante bebop, danno lo spessore della big band a Yellow Submarine
e con la consueta bravura trasfigurano Love You To in un sorprendente rag-time. Per non parlare del "lato b",
in cui si mischiano generi cronologicamente pi vicini a noi: il funk di Doctor Robert, la fusion rockeggiante
di Got To Get You Into My Life, lo scoppiettante finale in hip-hop di Tomorrow Never Knows.
Va sempre bene ai BOZO allegro? No, certamente: alcuni brani spiccano (For No One, Good Day Sunshine),
alcuni altri sono sicuramente un po' forzati (Eleanor Rigby, nel suo spiritual troppo manieristico); ma,
se un'idea nuova (e riuscita in ottima parte) che cercate, fermatevi pure a casa Milner.
Un certo 'working class hero' sarebbe stato contento di questa strana, bizzarra suite.
bOOm says: Suonala ancora, Sam!
Here's one of the best Beatle tributes you'll ever find:
not merely a complete reworking of the entire REVOLVER but "a transmogrification of Beatles'
themes into a chronological stylistic exploration of African influence in American music." If that
sounds stuffy, the result is anything but. From an African "Taxman" to a ragtime "Love You To," from
a bebop "She Said She Said" to a hip-hop "Tomorrow Never Knows," this is wildly clever. (four-and-a-half stars)
I picked up The REVOLVER Suite CD last week, and my 16-year-old trumpet-playing son and I fell in love
with it! The arrangements really groove!
Jazz musicians are no more qualified to cover Beatles tunes than William Shatner...(who)
once recorded...an overwrought version of "Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds" that proved more laughable than listenable.
Sure, Shatner should be expected to stink up any tune he attempts to cover. But anyone who treads
shit on such holy ground as Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band should be locked up in a room and
forced to listen to such puke as The REVOLVER Suite by BOZO allegro, a little big band who
force-fit all of the tunes from one of the greatest pop albums of all time into different styles of jazz
and rock.
The unique BOZO allegro (is) a hip nonet that's given The Beatles' Revolver
a jazz makeover on the charming and disarming CD The REVOLVER Suite.
Este trimestre te presentamos tres interesantisimos CDs de versiones. El primero,
y sin duda uno de los mejores que han caido en nuestras manos desde que se invento esto de versionear a
Los Beatles, se titula The REVOLVER Suite y ha sido grabado por el grupo americano BOZO allegro...
todos ellos fantasticos ejecutantes de solos. La idea y el desarrollo musical son realmente excepcionales...
En fin, una maravilla para el que le gusten las versiones.
This album provides another translation of The Beatles' music...(and) the
result is an intriguing, upbeat, catchy listening experience, particularly
if...you like jazz in addition to The Beatles.
The particular style used is listed beside each of the songs. Some
of the treatments stand out, including the exciting gospel style of "I'm
Only Sleeping"; the Dixieland version of "Here, There And Everywhere" (I
like this treatment better as I always considered the original a bit
insipid if unavoidably catchy); the seductive reggae style of "I Want To
Tell You"; and an infectiously bluesy rendition of "Good Day Sunshine".
The Big Band style of "Yellow Submarine" is more "Moonlight Serenade" than
"String Of Pearls" (go ask your parents - or grandparents! - about that).
On some numbers, the melody line is buried in the arrangement,
making the listener take a second to catch on to which Beatles song it is.
However, this does not detract. On some, such as the African style of
"Taxman", the rhythmic beat is the most interesting part.
...This album by an obviously very accomplished group of musicians
provides a good introduction to their particular brand of music via the
well-known songs of The Beatles.
BOZO allegro is a nine-piece horn band playing jazz-rock arangements of all
the songs from the Beatles' Revolver album. The songs are presented in the
same running order as on the original album and each song receives a
metamorphosis by moulding it into one of the styles from the history of
popular music: from African, Gospel to Ragtime, Big Band, Soul, right up
to Fusion and Hip Hop.
Don't be afraid to find longwinding
improvisiations: in most of the songs, the original melody is either left
fully intact or pops up frequently; a few arrangements only have slight
references to the songs from which they originate. You don't need to be an
expert to recognize the various chronologically ordered music styles, as
the band plays feature elements of each: the African drums in
"Taxman", the electric guitar used in the blues version of "Good Day Sunshine",
lots of brass in the funk-styled "Doctor Robert", the rhythm pattern in the
reggae track "I Want To Tell You".
Vocals are hardly missed, since there's a
full sound on each track with different instrumental solos as well as
refined fills when the melody is played on one of the instruments; the
tracks also shade off into one another easily.
The magnificent performance
of the diversity of styles makes this disc a surprising and highly
entertaining listening experience (but don't start with the final cacophony
in "Got To Get You Into My Life", though!). It must have been quite a task
to synchronize the music history and the original tracklisting, but BOZO
"passed the audition" with this rewarding project.
Revolver (yes, the whole album) has been recorded by a new band, BOZO allegro (that's how they write it - not me!). The album is officially titled The REVOLVER Suite and offers new takes on some old favorites. All of the songs are instrumental and are done in a variety of styles. (Who ever thought "Yellow Submarine" could cut it as a big band piece? Believe it or not, it works!) The group is predominantly a rock-jazz horn band and the style really lends itself to the album. ("I Want To Tell You" as a reggae song? It works!) It's forty-five minutes of music that you'd swear you'd never heard before, yet at the same time the tunes do sound familiar! It gets a thumbs up from us!
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