That was my Father-in-Law’s official summary of the 5 piece Jazz band named Ben Fowler. After a great dinner at The Ringside with the wifey, her father and our friend Heather we all decided to visit the locally famous jazz joint Jimmy Maks. The band du jour was a quintet aptly named Ben Fowler because this band is all about Ben Fowler and nothing more. Unfortunately for the patrons last night Ben’s saxaphone seemed off key to the untrained ear. But then again when can you tell if a person playing jazz is following the music anyway. The best way to explain this situation is the following. The band would start a song, let’s say with the keyboardist doing a little solo accompanied by the drummer. Then the guitarist would kick in a few jazzy riffs and the bass player would crank out a nice beat. At this point you’re thinking to yourself, hey this is pretty cool. But then the carnage would begin. Ben, standing stoically (see pic below) clutching his weapon of mass destruction would start to play. He sounded like he just got out of Mr. Beers 7th grade beginner band practice. What a let down. I mean the rest of the band must be silently cursing to themselves. We sound great until Mr. Doofus pipes in. Another way to put this is let’s say you go the a restaurant and order a nice big juicy fat steak. When your order arrives it looks absolutely wonderful until you take your first bite of the steak only to find out you are eating camel hump.
