Green Bay Band Reviews
Have You Heard? Band Review at Bay City Smokehouse in Green Bay, WI

By TJ
September 24, 2009
It's not that often you get to see some real jazz being played down in the Lambo Field bar district. With all the sports bars and Packer fans in town for Sunday's game, the area was charged with energy. Adding to that charge was Have You Heard? a Jazz quartet from Green Bay playing down at The Bay City Smoke House. So I walk in, take a table by the band and begin to chillax to the smooth sounds and energetic rhythms. The first thing that comes to my mind is that Have You Heard? are fresh and you can tell their passion for playing this Hot Jazz, Bebop, Bosa Nova, Fusion, Experimental, Jam, and Lounge music runs deep. While playing a bunch of classic jazz standards through the evening by Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck they made them their own by infusing spirited solos and jams that drift away from the melodies roots only to bring you right back home. Have You Heard? originals show a more jam band flavor mixing in some of the more experimental elements like the synth. Sax player Chris Furgus takes lead of the band, calling out the songs and snapping his fingers to set the tempo and the band jumps right in on time. Chris plays a mellow alto sax that is lively enough and melodic, he's got some great riffs and he also mixes in a Korg synthesizer to ad some interesting electronica parts to the jams. Walking or running through the scales Zach Warpinski is quite an accomplished bass player he has a very snappy tone and a lot of bottom end. When he solos, he is all over the fret board with an amazing speed, truly fun to watch and listen to. Ben Hogan works the four piece Tama kit, his style is very cool and syncopated. Ben's drum solos are melodic which to me is far more impressive than being fast or overly complicated. The melodic quality from Ben's kit comes from well tuned drums and his attention to rhythmic space. Ben really heats things up when he gets into the triplets on the two rides, one of them riveted and that makes a nice sizzling sound. On the Epiphone hollow body guitar is Zachary Grusznski playing with a warm tone and his sweet sounding complex jazz cords and solos. Zachary held together most of the foundation of the songs in chords but his bandmates did give him a few opportunities to take a ride. When you put these four musicians together you get a real unique sound, kind of like old school bebop raw jazz melting into contemporary jazz then flowing into jam band and electronica. Have You Heard? definitely added a sense of class and variety to an area that is dominated by the Packers sports theme and even though the crowd wasn't right up front and responsive to the band you could tell the patrons really enjoyed the music and the relaxing evening by the amount of green being dropped in the Sax case as people called it a night! Watch a video of their performance here.