How did the band get created?
Late in 2011, a tall guy, a vegetarian, a Yorkshireman and one of Scotland’s top jazzers met after dusk in secret conclave in a Glasgow cafe to worship the ancient art of Morris Dancing.
As the night wore on and after they had exhausted the merits of Morris Dancing they digressed to Tom Waits, Sun Ra, The Monkees, Glen Campbel, The Mothers of Invention and the Butthole Surfers. Several hours later, somehow they left the cafe having agreed to form a new big band/jazz collective – with a fresh manifesto to play aurally attention grabbing arrangements featuring an eclectic mix of tunes, but heavily featuring works by new writers and composers. A modern big band juke box if you like…
And the name for this new project would be Zig Zag Big Band (a tip of the hat to Brother Ornette for that).
In the spring of 2012 whilst most normal people were thinking about holidays, gardening and having a rest they started press-ganging members.
Some were promised fame and fortune, some were promised notoriety, some were promised anonymity and some were offered shelter and an alibi. Some were lonely musicians who were spending too many hours in bedrooms practicing (‘woodshedding’ as serious jazzers like to call it) and other lonely ones who just wanted a night out with other people.