By Cassie Lowery
At Upper Arlington High School, there are many talented bands. Korey Black, an outgoing junior belongs to a relatively new group called Muzeek. To get more information on Muzeek you can search them on facebook, or e-mail them at funkmuzeek@gmail.com. The name is a combination of music and geek, which fits the music-obsessed personality of the group. With seven talented musicians, the group is expanding and experimenting with all different types of music. They play a wide variety of instruments from flugelhorn to 12-string guitar, so they aren’t your typical teenage rock group. If you happen to hear them at the Scarlet and Grey Café, where they’re regulars, you’ll hear a diverse set list covering all aspects of the music spectrum. Though the group originally began playing jazz they’ve expanded into everything from reggae to rap. During the following interview I learned how the group got started and exactly what sets them apart from the other bands at the school.
Q: You’re in a band, Muzeek, can you tell me… who the other members are and what they play?
BLACK: …I play three different saxophones in the band. We have a trumpet player, Henry Randle; we have a flugelhorn player Maddy Crone. We have a drummer who also plays keyboard sometimes who’s Dan Griffin who graduated last year. We also have a guitarist, Dan Schaefer [the bass player is Sidd Padture]. And then we have the utility guy [Connor McCrystal] … he plays guitar, the drums, keyboard, does some vocals, trombone, and I think that’s it, oh no and 12 sting guitar, yeah. So he could basically do everything in the band by himself, but he doesn’t so that’s good.
Q: How did the band get started?
BLACK: …The band got started I think, during my beginning months of my sophomore year. It was way back in the middle of the summer, and I had an idea that I wanted to start a jazz group, I sent out a message for like 30 people to join this jazz group and I thought I was going to do a cool jazz band and stuff, little did I know that only six people would want to do that. So we started having practices and we had a lot of fun because we were playing the swing music just weird, because none of us could really play it, but we thought that would be cool. And we had a gig at the zoo that was all about our jazz so … that was the beginning months of Muzeek.
Q: What type of music?
BLACK: Our official genre, we changed from jazz, we are now super funk, which kind of came about, just, I don’t know how we got that actually, but we’re super funk which is a form of funk … A guy named Miles Davis, played trumpet, started it. It’s basically what jazz was way back in the 80’s when it turned it from jazz to rock and roll and jazz. It has a horn section, and we play a lot of cool, groovy, ha, I guess I can say groovy, types of music.
Q: What’s the best part of playing in a band?
BLACK: I think the best part is when we all get together, and sometimes we don’t even practice, it’s just a good time to hang out with people, we’re all a great group of friends, and we always will be, no matter how many stupid decisions some people make, we always have a good time. So I think our favorite part is just hanging out with everybody, and getting the time to just sit down and chill.
Q: What do you think people will like about this group?
BLACK: This group is so cool, because it appeals to so many different age groups. Anyone from ages 10 to 200 could love this music, just because it takes every aspect of the music genres starting from way back in jazz, early 1920’s to new modern day rock. …We have some reggae, we got some rap songs in there believe it or not, we’ve got funk, we’ve got blues, you name it we got it, we have at least one song we can play from each genre, and it’s a lot of fun.
Q: What are the future goals for the band?
BLACK: I was talking to them a few days ago, we hopefully are set up for the 4th of July gig this year, which means for Upper Arlington’s fourth of July we’re gunna have the main stage for the entire night to play all of our songs, and cover songs, just to have a great time with over like 2,000 people there… That’s our first goal to get there, which will be tough, our second goal is, in about two years we’re planning on going on tour to a few different states, and just hangin out with the good friends that we have right before I go to college… but, that’s probably the biggest goal that we have so far.
Q: Where should we look for Muzeek next?
BLACK: Probably you wanna look at the Scarlet and Grey Café, we’re now regulars there, because we made a huge ticket sale, and… they want us back all the time. So the Scarlet and Grey on High Street would be great place to look at us for the next gig that we have.