A long time ago, before ipods, there were
a group of cave men who, in between mammoth hunts and alien
encounters, would play a primitive style of music with their
primitive instruments on the street corner as glaciers drove
by. Like so many young aspiring musicians of the era, they
were frozen solid and locked in ice for an untold amount
of time. Due to global warming (or whatever you want the
reason to be) they recently found themselves thawed out
with a huge sleepy sand in the eye and they all had to pee
really really bad. After the shock and amazement of their
new surrounding set in, they noticed that their instruments
were still relatively in tune. They were taken in by the
modern primates, bathed, shaved, and dressed. There was
much rejoicing.
| |
|
|
|
|
| Nick
Borges
Trumpet/voc |
Dave
DelloRusso
Banjo/voc/harp |
Steve
Yarbro
Sax/Clarinet/voc |
Will
Choe
Trumpet/Tuba/voc |
Chris
Trevethan
Drums |
The seeds were planted way back in the year
2000 in Agawam Massachusetts when Dave Dolorous, a folk/funk
performer, responded to a "banjo player needed"
ad for Six Flags New England. After quickly learning a few
banjo chords and oozing through the audition, he found himself
in the last place he or his fans would ever expect him to
be. Dave was the full time Dixieland banjo player at the park
for two summers. What started as a summer job to avoid flipping
burgers, ended with a severe addiction to a particular sound
that would soon become contagious.
In 2005, Dave was living in AZ and suffering from Jazz withdrawal.
He started searching for musicians at the Universities, venues,
under rocks, in dumpsters, and coat pockets for months on
end. Dave finally came across tuba player Curtis Peacock who
helped to find the remaining musicians. Jay Mosall (trumpet)
and Steven Yarbro (clarinet) were both Grad students from
Arizona State University and Steve is currently working on
his doctorate. At first, Dave was concerned that his search
for jazz players resulted in finding classical performers.
Even as they play professionally in symphonies, could these
highly skilled technicians get down and dirty with improv?
The answer was a quick yes. Each of these musicians have roots
and influences in styles all over the board. The new line-up
of ASU grads had, in their mental pocket, an inventory of
Rock, Hip-Hop, Techno, Classical, Folk, Funk, and of course
Jazz. Naturally, this Dixieland band was going to be more
of what you might call a Neo-Dixieland band. Nothing is sacred.
They would play New Orleans versions of Sublime, Doors, Neil
Young, South Park, and whatever else came to mind.
In a time when Arizona was going through a clear example of
corporate control, when even the bar strip (Mill Ave) was
over-run by chain establishments, when mom and pop businesses
are practically nonexistent, this band would stand on a street
corner and deliver the loudest, dirtiest, and blindingly quickest
display of an almost lost art form to a crowd of people who
have no idea what just hit them. As people stood and stared
with an almost hypnotic grin, danced, and dumped money into
the banjo case, it became apparent that Arizona's creative
dry spell is coming to an end. Within the first few weeks
of doing these "gorilla shows", other brass bands
and old time jazz musicians started popping up on Mill Ave.
The band picked up steam over the first year and finally relocated
to the cultural activity of the Northeast. Six Flags has grown
to be one of the largest parks in the country. The band returned
to Six Flags for the summer of 06 as a way to finance their
relocation to the Northeast. In the fall of 06, Tuba player,
Will Choe (one of the original Six Flags musicians from 2001),
joined the group and the band also added drums for the first
time. Chris Trevethan sat in at a gig and has been the drummer
ever since.
In their first year on the East Coast, they've
sold out venues full of every age and walk of life. They've
also been headlining at festivals and even hosting their own
circus. They play school clinics for middle schools, high
schools, and colleges in hopes that they might plant the seed
in young musicians. Every now and again, they'll donate their
time by performing in retirement communities and even nursing
homes as a way to thank the generation that developed this
music. Even though the band plays a modern version of dixieland
(or often not dixie at all) they will still throw in a few
tunes at each show that sound no different from the 1920s.
Whether they play for old folks at a nursing home, children
at an amusement park, or a pile of drunk college students,
the music never changes. The style that The Primate Fiasco
has developed works like a skeleton key on any group of people
and has yet to see a bored audience.
In the summer of 07, Jay left the band with
a 5 minute notice. This left the band without trumpet in front
of the 10,000 people at Green River Music Festival. The next
day, Matt Boucher (musician from Six Flags) started a 6 month
era of substitutes and temporary musicians. While the band
remained successful with private parties, their plans for
recording an album and moving forward with many of their plans
drastically suffered. The dry spell ended when trumpet player,
Nick Borges, joined the band. At that point, the band had
a trumpet player who could sing, improvise, and offer stage
personality which drastically changed the performance power
of the band. The Sgt Pepper tribute show at the Iron Horse,
free concert at the Elevens, and a headlining spot at the
Extravaganja put the band back on track with the community
and gave them the creative velocity to get back on track and
pick up where they were in the previous summer.
The band now plays and sings a batch of original
songs that are not easily categorized. Compared to the early
days of street performing and Six Flags, the Fiasco now sports
intriguing lyrics, three part vocal harmony, mind bending
horns, and a rhythm section that forces dancing. On April
26th, The Primate Fiasco entered the recording studio for
the first time. Six originals and three warped jazz standards
were recorded and scheduled for release in June 08. This puts
the band in a whole new ball game which all band members and
friends are very excited about.
The band collaborates with several musicians,
singers, dancers, and circus performers. And there's always
room for more. contact the band
to join the fiasco. |
Christian
Carichner 
