Milo Z

"We're talking funk in the James Brown tradition here: the merging of elegance and raunch into a brassy, booty-shake review - white-gloved showmanship, deep-pocket grooves, and the classic JB drop-the-time-pay-a-dime tight musicianship." - Village Voice

"Openers Milo Z also impressed. Based in New York, they've built a strong cult following in the Big Apple, but appear ready to break out nationwide. Singer Milo Z combined the '60s mania of Sly Stone with the '80s mania of Prince, capped by some hip-hop/funk from the '90s Red Hot Chili Peppers. His musicians likewise showed a hard driving dynamic . . . . ." - Boston Globe

"......Neither familiar nor predicatable is the situation where an opening act almost threatens to steal the show, but Milo Z, a young six man band almost did it. Fusing pop, jazz and a frenetic funk, the group displayed dramatic flair in a 30-minute show that was polished yet sweaty, oozing with raw, rock & roll sexuality . . . ." - Toronto Sun

"Quietly and for what seems like forever, Milo Z has been working Skyscraper Park. He has played everywhere from the tiniest hole-in-the-wall clubs on Bleeker Street to a few of the premier showcases here, honing his funk to an edge you could shave with." - New York Post

"Milo Z blends funk, rock, soul, rhythm and blues, hip-hop. There's no substitute for a good groove, no matter the style of music and few contemporary bands so consistently turn out solid, hip-shaking grooves as New York City's Milo Z, the septet that turned . . . . . .into a sweat-soaked dance palace . . . ." - The Patriot Ledger

This November, 2006 the song "Friendly Talk" which is on the album "Sweet N' Nasty" was selected to be one of the songs to appear on Sonicbids Listen Up Volume 3 Compilation CD.

"Even though submissions were only open for a very short period of time, we had over 500 songs to sort through for only 17 slots. Congratulations to the 17 artists who made this year’s CD and a big Thank You to everyone who submitted and donated to the charities. We have no doubt that each submission we received will set important things in motion for the charities involved, and we believe in the talent of all our members. We wish you all continued success.

- Sonicbids.com

Well, it’s finally here! Milo Z’s new CD/DVD titled “MILO Z UP ON THE HILL – Live in Athens, Greece” will be released September 2007!

The CD/DVD of the 13 piece Milo Z Big Band was recorded live at the prestigious Lykabettus Theater atop La Cavitos in Athens, Greece in front of an audience of over 3,000 energetic fans. The CD contains the live performance of some new, never recorded songs by Milo Z, as well as some Milo Z classics. The DVD includes not only live concert footage but bonus “behind-the-scenes” footage of the Milo Z Big Band, filmed in both NYC and Greece, and follows the band right up to the night of the concert.

Milo Z has CD/DVD release parties scheduled at various venues in September before leaving for a European tour in October. This CD/DVD is a must have for any Milo Z fan as it captures the raw funk and intensity that Milo Z shows have been famous for throughout the years. The album will be available at shows and can be purchased online beginning in October.
- for immediate release

It’s a rather breezy night down in the West Village, but Milo Z is heating things up at The Red Lion. People are tapping their feet and bopping their heads to the funky groove rhythms that the band is kicking. Some are left standing at the bar, no room to sit. But they seem to appreciate the music more than what any seat could offer.


The room is intimately lit with candles while additional lighting from the street pierces through the windows. Suddenly without warning, the band leader, Milo Z, strolls onto the dinner table sized stage. “Don’t stop clapping yall,” he instructs the audience.


He’s six-foot-two, wearing a black wool hat and a burgundy leather jacket. He dances right into place and on beat of the drums. After hitting a few notes he leaves the mic and gets loose, showing off his dance moves as the band keeps rocking the house. Popping his arms and locking his shoulders, Milo’s in his own personal square foot dancehall.


“They’re going to blow your mind,” says Norman Whitlow, a longtime drummer who grew up in the ‘60s. He looks over to a former colleague, “and of course they’re just getting started. Aint nothing like live.”


The music fuses an old school vibe with new school swag. The melodies are jazz smooth but there’s still bounce in the count so that it’s suitable for dance. And that’s exactly what people do when they hear Milo Z, dance.


“You gotta be dead to not like this music,” says Milo Z himself. “Gotta have a pulse.”


Milo Z grew up in the Lower East Side and was only 14 when he got heavily involved in music, he says. He started out as a drummer, playing in clubs for local rock bands. He earned money this way up until he was 22. He tried rapping but it didn’t work out. “I think it was around the time Vanilla Ice came out so I thought, let me just start singing.”


His influences include artists such as Sly Stone, The Beatles, War and Johnny “Guitar” Watson. As for today’s music, “I like some but a lot of it is overproduced,” he says.” He feels that today’s music definitely needs more live instruments and classic sounds.


“Have you seen the cover of Jay-Z’s new cd?” he asks. “It’s a pile of music instruments and they’re all painted white. I’m not with that.” He explains that when he was growing up, if a child was killed in a bicycle accident they would spray paint the bicycle white in memory of the deceased child. His interpretation then, of the artwork on The Blueprint 3 is that Jay-Z’s pronouncing the element of live instrumentation dead. Milo Z doesn’t agree.


Already a popular funk band in New York City, Milo Z is also well known in Europe where they recorded their most recent cd, Up On The Hill, Live in Athens, Greece. “It’s better overseas,” says Milo Z. “They’re really open to live music and we bring something unique to that culture.” The cd includes a DVD of the concert and off-stage footage.


In 1995, Milo Z had a major deal with PolyGram Records but says the label didn’t promote him right. He’s now with independent label Z Booga Records and hopes to re-sign to a major label in the near future. “I’m working on my next studio album and I plan to shop it around to the majors,” he says. He hopes to finish the record early next year.


Though he’s yet to achieve his ultimate goal, Milo Z is happy with his current accomplishments. The band has raided through countless clubs in New York and New Jersey, resort venues in Vermont and Rhode Island, and has performed with the likes of Chuck Brown, Maceo Parker and The Neville Brothers to name a few. “We almost opened for James Brown in Greece, but he died,” he jokes.


While the crowd’s still live and jamming, the band is transitioning to the next cut, a song called "Playing Hooky." It’s groovy and everyone knows what they’re talking about. Milo Z throws his jacket off and bounces to the horns. The band then goes into a funky kick, lean and snap routine connecting on the hit of the drum each time. Hands are in the air and people are dancing in front of the stage. The band disperses into the crowd, moving from table to table until everyone is out of their seats.


“This is what you pay your money for,” says Whitlow. “He’ so funk that anyone can relate to his music, no matter what area you’re from.” He snaps and taps his feet. “It’s all about the beat. Don’t matter if you’re rapping or singing it’s the beat.” - www.examiner.com

Milo Z has just returned from a successful tour in Greece. For his first show he put together a funky 13 piece band to perform at the famous Lykavettus Theatre in Athens. A hyped up crowd of about 3,000 people showed up to see Milo Z and the band throw down some serious original funk and soul. This was by all accounts an amazing feat considering Milo Z, an unsigned artist, was going up against the internationally known recording artist Shakira, who was performing elsewhere in Athens the very same night. The success of the Lykavettus concert can only be attributed to the fanatical cult following Milo Z has built up in Greece over the last several years. The three-hour plus concert was filmed as well as recorded so fans can look forward to a new CD/DVD of the concert in 2007. Milo Z is also in the process of making a film/documentary about the whole experience. Starting from the very beginning when Milo first found out the promoters had decided to take a chance on him performing a the prestigious venue in Athens, up through the night of the concert. The film will take the viewers through the journey, both the good and the bad, showing the preparation, sweat, determination, and drama behind putting together the magical night. - Press Release

MUSIC SCENE: BRING THE FUNK; Milo Z’s show mixes jazz and dance

Milo Z
By JAY N. MILLER
For The Patriot Ledger
Neither The Iliad nor The Odyssey had any passages about people ‘‘getting funky’’ in Athens. But if the bard Homer never got down, some of his descendants undoubtedly do, whenever New York City’s Milo Z comes to town.

Milo Z’s latest album is a CD/DVD dual pack recorded live at a special show in Athens in July 2006. Johnny D’s in Somerville hosts a CD release party Saturday night for Milo Z and his septet, who will bring the funk all night long. The album ‘‘Up On the Hill: Live in Athens, Greece’’ will be available at the show, and is also available online through www.miloz.com or myspace.com/milozmusic.

Many American musicians, particularly jazz and blues artists, find plenty of work in Europe, but Milo Z is somewhat unique in forging a path in Greece.

‘‘We first went to Athens in 1998-99,’’ he said from his New York City home earlier this week, fresh from another Grecian jaunt. ‘‘That first time we ended up performing in a jazz place in Athens, and they really dug the funk. We kept going back and started doing a couple of other cities over there too, and our popularity started building.’’

Early in 2006, a concert promoter approached Milo Z about doing a show in Athens. The proposed venue, the Lykabettus Theater, also known as ‘‘The Hill,’’ is situated atop La Cavitos and overlooks the entire city, and the Acropolis.

The 3,000-seat venue is a bowl-shaped stadium, and the promoter suggested Milo Z bring a bigger band than his usual septet. Eventually, after some passport complications for various members were ironed out, Milo Z brought over a 13-piece band, with two dancers, a four-man horn section, and funk artist and pal Moe Holmes as second vocalist.

Given the size of the venture, and the historical site, Milo decided to record and film the concert. The resulting CD is more than an hour long, and the DVD includes behind-the-scenes segments of the band rehearsing in New York, traveling to Greece and checking out the concert venue. The DVD also includes live concert footage of four songs, displaying Milo Z’s suave-but-funky frontman style and his band’s ability to improvise and extend nearly every tune.

‘‘I put together a funky big band,’’ Milo Z said. ‘‘My usual group is seven or eight people, so this was definitely a little different. I had done a big band gig once before, at Trammps in New York in ’99, and we’d recorded that one live, too. But it is a more challenging undertaking, with that many more cogs in the wheel. Luckily I have a rotating cast of musicians that we use in my regular band, revolving horn players, session guys, and so on, so most of these players were not starting from scratch. It was mainly a case of doing the horn parts for four guys instead of two, and adding percussion and of course the dancers.’’
Milo Z’s strong baritone, and rakish sense of style - dig the gray pin-striped suit he wears in the DVD footage - keep the party moving and visually exciting

Milo Z began in music as a drummer, but was always a lover of funk. He particularly liked the way James Brown’s classic bands used percussion as a guide and frequently inserted stop time, turnarounds, and tempo switches in his music. Milo Z does all of his own arrangements, but leaves room in them for improvisation, aiming for the kind of jams that make every night special.

‘‘We never really do the same show twice,’’ Milo Z said. ‘‘There is room in there for solos, extended choruses and jams. We don’t like to do a set that has a song going ‘1-2-3’ and is done in 3½ minutes every night. I like to get the group as tight as we can, so they know the material inside-out, and then let them jam on it. It is just more fun that way, and there’s more room for good accidents to happen.’’

Milo Z met James Brown once, in the summer of 2006, in Greece. A trumpet player he knew years earlier when he was a drummer was playing with Brown. He contacted Milo Z and got him backstage for the show.
‘‘I met him just before he went onstage, and I was truly awestruck,’’ Milo Z said. ‘‘That man was the master, the godfather of this kind of music. The way he’d have his band break up meters, break down rhythms, use every instrument like it was a drum, and make it all fit in the way of a groove was brilliant. He was definitely a big influence on me.’’

Milo Z’s own songwriting uses funk as a foundation for a variety of themes. A tune like ‘‘Practice What You Preach’’ jabs at hypocrisy, but without taking a pointed viewpoint. A song like ‘‘Food’’ likens romance to sustenance. Other tunes such as ‘‘Serious,’’ ‘‘Funky People’’ or ‘‘Crazy Boy’’ are lighthearted dance fare with a dollop of autobiographical detail.

‘‘I’m tough on myself when it comes to lyrics,’’ Milo Z said. ‘‘Lyrics for me are the hardest part of the songwriting. I don’t ever want them to sound too cliched. I want them to have a certain soulful quality, and try to say things in a different way.’’

As many relentlessly touring bands have learned, younger generations tend to be hooked on hip-hop, iPods and downloads, and not especially hot for live music. It is something bandleaders like Milo Z try to keep in mind when they’re crafting their show.

‘‘The younger generation does seem like more of a throwaway generation, more apt to watch TV and their computer than go out,’’ Milo Z said. ‘‘We musicians have a lot to compete with these days: 200-odd cable TV channels, video games, computers, iPods. I think the younger people’s attention spans are very short. These are all reasons to try and make my show a real show, with a visual and dance component every night.’’ -

Milo Z said young people in Europe are different. In Greece, for example, ‘‘young people love to go out at night and see different places and clubs and bands,’’ he said.

But Milo Z sees hope for the younger generation, and music fans as a whole - and in an unlikely place: ‘‘American Idol’’ and its string of similar shows.

‘‘I like ‘American Idol’ because it gives people a shot who normally wouldn’t get one,’’ he said. ‘‘Record companies have been deciding what people should listen to for years, and that show proves them wrong.’’

Milo Z will be bringing his usual septet to Johnny D’s, where he’s built quite a following with his incendiary live shows. With the band just back from a dozen dates in Europe and Greece, he said they’re as tight as they’ve ever been and ready to raise the roof.

There was no Boston Battle of the Blues Bands this year, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have a local representative. Pembroke’s wunderkind drummer, 14-year old Danny Banks, hooked up with the Mike Crandall Band in the Connecticut competition. The Crandall Band won, and Kilroy’s in Quincy is hosting an afternoon fundraiser on Dec. 2 to help send them to Memphis for the national competition. The Crandall Band, Chris Fitz, Rick Russell, and the Coolerators are among the attractions at the event, which runs from 3-9 p.m.

Jay N. Miller covers popular music on the South Shore and in the Boston area. If you have information or ideas for Jay about the local music scene, bookings, recordings, artists etc., send it to him by e-mail to features@ledger.com . Attn: Music Scene in the subject line.

Copyright 2007 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Friday, November 16, 2007

- Patriot Ledger