rizorkestra

Americans are individualists, rebels, loners—which makes me wonder why there aren’t more one-man bands around. Think about it! A one-man band doesn’t have to share the pay or wonder if the drummer is too drunk to play. A one-man band doesn’t need anyone … well, except an audience, but that part’s easy when you’re as engaging as Rizorkestra, a one-man roots/blues band who’ll be appearing at Mongo’s in Grover Beach, March 22.

 He plays a mean resonator guitar, sings, plays kazoo, hi-hat, and bass drum—simultaneously, people. His renditions of blues songs, jug band tunes, gospel music classics, instrumental stomps, romps, jumps, and rags, early country music, early jazz, Tin Pan Alley tunes, folk music and novelty songs will blow you away. It’s impossible not to have fun watching a one-man band.
 
Riz, as he goes by, lives in a rustic cabin near the Los Angeles National Forest on a pocket of private land. He’s completely off the grid: no running water, no electricity, no phone line, a waterfall in back yard.

 “It’s nice, harmonious, lots of solitude,” says Riz via phone recently (he was on-the-road touring). A gregarious sort of guy, Riz has a beat poet’s hipster attitude.

 “Check this out, man. I played a benefit in downtown L.A., a thing called Midnight Mission, and they served—I don’t know, man—something like 1,100 Easter dinners to the homeless. They had a stage set up and folks went out and played, and among the folks was Dick Van Dyke. He came and sang a tune. Wow, he’s the icon of the one-man band. What an honor it was to play for that guy.”

 Riz—who’s played guitar and kazoo with Dan Hicks’ X-Mas Jug Band, played vibraphone and Rhodes keyboard with Greyboy Allstar saxophonist Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, was a founding member with San Francisco chanteuse Lavay Smith and her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, and performs and records as jazz vibraphonist with San Francisco funk/Latin jazz/dub/grooveband Vinyl—is clearly no stranger to performing with others, but he seems to have really hit on a niche genre with Rizorkestra.

 “I’m probably the only guy in all of L.A. who’s doing it, and in L.A. that’s what you want, to be the guy who stands out. But I have to say, it’s really hard, really labor intensive. The concentration level is enormous.”

 Most people can barely play one instrument at a time. Try playing guitar, percussion, and singing or playing the kazoo! It may be near-impossible, but people eat it up.

 “The one-man band concept fits in a lot of places. It’s entertaining music for kids, who love the novelty, and old folks, some of whom grew up on this music. And I always have audience participation in the form of volunteer mixed-chorus. Most of the time it’s just moaning-in-the-field kind of stuff. It’s American music that celebrates that pioneer spirit and Yankee ingenuity, the kind of thing that brings people together: jugband tunes, rags jumps and shuffles, gospel tunes, folk tunes, some real gut-bucket blues.”


-March 16th, 2006

- Feature article by Glen Starkey New Times San Luis Obispo