Slow Poke

Slow Poke is a loose, irregular quartet formed by bassist Tony Scherr (Sex Mob, Brad Shepik & the Commuters, Either/Orchestra), reedman Michael Blake, drummer Kenny Wollesen, also a member of Sex Mob and Brad Shepik & the Commuters, who has played with artists as diverse as Myra Melford and Tom Waits, as well as Electric Masada and was the founding member of the New Klezmer Trio, and the final member, slide guitarist David Tronzo, who has led his own groups and is a member of the Knitting Factory "supergroup" Superfly. Musician Magazine ranks Tronzo as one of the top 100 guitarists of all time. The connective tissue among the four was membership in John Lurie's Lounge Lizards. Together they continue the semi-detached, semi-bemused exploration of jazz, soul, and blues that was a Hallmark of the (NYC) Lounge Lizards. Tronzo is perhaps the least known of the four, but his laconic slide often forms the foil off which the others respond. As their name foreshadows, slow is the operative descriptor. They take Eddie Harris's Listen Here and turn it into a nearly eight minute slow jam, and Ellington's Rockin' in Rhythm sounds as if Ry Cooder reconfigured the tune to a steel-slide blues. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.