- And finally a visit to the KUVO Phyllis A. Greer
Performance Studio with the band Too Many Zooz.
- This trio mixes Jazz, Afro-Cuban rhythms, funk and more
into a sound that got started
in the subways of New York City.
(upbeat Jazz music)
- When we first started we were just improvising.
Honestly, we decide which songs to play
based off how much money we made.
If one song was making a lot of money,
we're like, oh we're gonna play this song.
And so it kind of like formed songs.
Every part that we're playing is a part we wrote.
Real time we are changing things
about our set, about our appearance.
We made a lot more money today,
like Leo keep on dancing.
(Trumpet)
- Eventually we had to make the name.
None of us came up with the name.
I actually just took it from my friend
that was not gonna use it for a band.
It organically came through destiny.
- I come from more of a traditional music background,
like African music, traditional folkloric music.
In that experience it's a little bit different.
It's more about the ritual
and experience than it is about the performance.
I love all the music that was made in the past,
but I don't feel the need to recreate it.
I feel the need to speak from my experience today.
It's really important for me,
to me in what I do, to keep people moving.
In that tradition, that's what the drummer did,
he kept the community moving.
He brought the community together.
There have been so many collaborations that we've tried
that we think are going to be amazing.
(Piano)
For us with working with Beyonce,
that was just, we're serving her project
and so happy to do so.
I have nothing but amazing things to say about
that whole experience and working with her
and her team and everyone.
I think a lot of it is time and place
and where each respective party is at musically.
Also having the ability to leave your ego at the door.
And kind of come to that situation
ready to work with others.
- I never really heard the term
busking until we became viral.
I'd always considered myself a street performer
even before I was in this band
I was performing on the streets,
that's what I always called myself.
We realized how fortunate we are.
The real special thing about this band is that
everyone believes in themselves individually.
There's a lot of risk up here.
When you go down into the subway to play,
you don't know if you're going to pay
your rent at the end of the month.
You go down there with a certain thing,
If I don't, at least I went down there and I played
and that's what I'm here to do in New York,
that's what I'm here for.
It gets sort of misconstrued about our experience.
I don't want people to misunderstood that
you just go and you just play
and someone just puts a camera on you
and it just sort of magically happens.
There's a lot of sacrifice.
When you hear the music, I want you to be able to
feel that part of it too,
that angst or that thing is celebrating the fact
that we get to do what we get to do.