Ben Toury Jazz Corp

About

It's not common to see a jazz pianist play the harmonica, but the young Ben Toury doesn't care about fitting the stereotype of a pianist in a penguin suit. Instead, he takes blues-boogie rhythms and splices pieces of jazz breakdowns into the middle of them. Sometimes the prog-y plays bass lines on the lower register keys, melody on the harmonica and rhythm by slamming his foot on a tambourine. When he gets his fellow Frenchmen in the Jazz Corp behind him he'll even take a turn at singing, although his strong point is still his piano playing. The group released Heavy Staccato (2009) where he managed to write in a few sneaks of classical melodies and odd time signatures to freak out purist blues fans.