Zzymzzy Quartet
There’s not much more wonderful in the world than the mellow tone of a clarinet playing “Mood Indigo”. The guys from the Zzymzzy Quartet have simple ambitions: they just want to play it like it was – when it was unamplified, melodic, swinging, dreamy, full of sly surprise. From the Prohibition through the Second Big War, the glory days of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington are being recaptured humbly and with humor in San Diego by four musicians who know it don’t mean a thing without that swing. Peter Miesner is the guy on the left with the f-hole guitar and the librarian-like knowledge of old show tunes; Beston Barnett, the other guitar, went so far as to name his first-born son after the famous Gypsy jazz guitar player Django Reinhardt; Patrick Marion plays that bass he’s holding like a big fish swims in the surf; and Matt Gill, he’ll be the one with the mellow tone playing “Mood Indigo”. The Zzymzzy Quartet is just getting warmed up: order yourself a Long Island iced tea and shimmy on over.
