By Donald Liebenson
If, in 2013, you had approached Too Many Zooz drummer Dave Parks on the L train platform at 14th Street in New York City, where he was busking with saxophonist Leo Pellegrino and trumpeter Matt Muirhead, and told him that 10 years later, the band would parlay their success as street musicians to play on stages around the world—and at one point even be asked to back Beyoncé on her album Lemonade—Parks would have looked at you and said, “Sounds about right.”
This is not ego. “We came to New York for this experience,” he explains in a phone interview. “We were living the New York dream; to find our way as artists and musicians. We didn’t know how or what it was going to be, but we all came with that attitude that we were going to make moves. We are very fortunate to have had all the things that have happened to us. But we each came to NY for that intended purpose: To win.”
Parks (a.k.a. King of Sludge) grew up in Indianapolis. Between radio station WTLC, which played R&B, funk, soul, jazz, and gospel, and the albums in his parents’ and siblings’ record collections, he became steeped in rhythm and big beats. His musical tastes are “all over the place,” he says, “anywhere from traditional West African music to John Coltrane; Polynesian music to salsa and hip hop. I’ve been listening to Hall & Oates lately.”
By the time Parks got to New York, the streets were his stage. He and Leo P (the reed man’s moniker) were part of another street outfit, the Drumadics, but to earn some extra money, they broke off to play together on their own, often joined by Parks’ then teenage son. One fateful day, Leo invited Matt, with whom he attended the Manhattan School of Music, to join them.
The first time they played together, it felt like “a religious experience,” Parks recalls. “The subway platform just stopped. Right after the first song, people asked, ‘What is that?’ They told us, ‘You guys are going to be famous; you’re going to tour all across the world.”
Did Parks share that feeling? “All we knew was that it didn’t suck,” he says with a laugh. “We made money that day and we were going to do it again the next day. We were all playing in other bands. I’m a trained chef, and at the time, I was still cooking.”
With Leo and Matt, he found the recipe for a robust musical stew the band calls brasshouse. What is brasshouse? Is it akin to what Louis Armstrong once said about jazz, that if you have to ask, you’ll never get it?
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Parks says. “It’s not that deep. It’s not like we have a philosophy. It’s mainly for us. People always asked us about the style of music we were playing in the subway. One of the things we all agreed on as far as music we like is house music, so we decided to call our brand of music brasshouse.”
In 2013, brass outfits Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Lucky Chops, and Underground Horns rocked New York’s subways. They certainly impressed Parks, who says that he was unfamiliar with the term busking. “We called it hitting, or just going to play,” he says.
Too Many Zooz—the name was given to the band by a friend of Leo’s who decided not to use it themselves for their own band—“happened to be in the right place at the right time,” Parks says. “The subways and streets offered platforms to be seen. They were a gateway to getting into clubs as well as a way to make money. You could get on YouTube. It was more of a showcase.”
Things could get kind of weird down there. “It’s not that bad,” Parks insists. “Nothing too crazy. The weirdest thing I ever saw was a guy with a cabbage on a leash.”
“100% pure adrenaline” was the tagline for the cult classic action film Point Break, and that’s a good description for Too Many Zooz. The galvanizing and colorfully coiffed Leo P moves like Leo P while playing the sax. As for Parks on bass drum, he thrives on the subway/street energy. “For me, there’s a vibe just going out and being able to play to everyday people,” he says. “I have a space I’m trying to occupy. My goal is to supply endless rhythm and get people to dance. Within that, I’m communicating to the other two guys.”
It’s the conversation that drives the band and makes each show unique, Parks says. “My whole thing is making sure we’re happy playing together,” he says. “If we’re communicating and having fun, I don’t have to worry about the audience. We know when we’re hitting it. We know that’s where it’s at.”
Too Many Zooz got an early boost from Questlove, who followed them on social media and tweeted a video of them in performance. They appeared on Beyoncé’s 2016 album Lemonade and appeared with her and the Chicks (the artists formerly known as the Dixie Chicks) on the CMAs.
Watching how an artist at Beyoncé’s level creates provided “so many lessons,” Parks says: “Mainly, never get too big that you don’t have your ear to the ground. This amazing artist could choose from any instrumentalists in the world, but she or her people had their ears to the ground, saw us, and recognized out talent. That was the amazing part. She has that kind of vision.”
The group has recorded several EPs, including one of some surprising covers (“I Like It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys), as well as a full-length album, 2016’s Subway Gawdz.
It’s slowly starting to dawn on the group that they are approaching their 10th anniversary. “We’ve recently started a documentary to tell our story in our own words,” Parks says. “The fact that we were three people who didn’t know each other and have put together an organization is overwhelming to think about.”
But Too Many Zooz have not forgotten their roots. Parks reports that they played on the streets as recently as two weeks ago. “We’ve never stopped playing the streets,” he says.
Ravinia audiences can expect Too Many Zooz to bring their street smarts to the Carousel Stage on September 9, where they will be joined by sax prodigy Grace Kelly, who frequently collaborates with Leo P as 2Saxy.
“We’re in the process of recording our next album,” Parks says. “This series of shows we’re doing, we’re displaying our more open-ending brasshouse things. We’ll be playing more like we would in the street, a lot more spontaneous.” ●
Donald Liebenson is a Chicago-based entertainment writer. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Los Angeles Times, and on RogerEbert.com. The first Ravinia concert he attended without his parents was Procol Harum in 1970.