Author: Will Isenberg
Rain Zhou ‘16 would never have guessed that an informal jam session his freshman year would one day become a professionally recorded album. But after a successful kickstarter campaign, he and his band Kenziek & Friends have raised enough funds to do just that.
“We met our freshman year, in JAM,” Rain says of his co-members, Skyler and Marshall. They got to know each other playing music in the common space of the Just About Music (JAM) program house on North Campus. Rain played keyboard, Skyler played drums, and Marshall played bass. It wasn’t until Sophomore year, when Jaden joined their team to play tenor sax, that they began playing at JAM open mics. Once they had enough practice, they opened for other bands at the Bear’s Den, and played for charity events at the Nines.
Rain describes their genre of choice as “jazz fusion”– a combination of rock, jazz, and funk. Their songs are all original, and blossomed from their many improvised jam sessions.
Photo provided by Rain Zhou
“We’d been thinking about compiling them into an actual album for awhile,” Rain explains. “But it wasn’t until over the summer that I started transcribing the music and planning it out.”
Their album will be called “The Last Bow,” as it will be released in April before they graduate. Rain started their kickstarter campaign once he realized how expensive the album would be.
“We’re inviting other musicians from Ithaca and beyond to participate with us,” Rain says. “Hence the ‘and Friends’ part.”
Rain is excited to showcase four years of hard week in which they had the opportunity to work with sound engineer Will Russell. Russell is a sound engineer at Electric Wilburland and has several decades of recording experience under his belt. In fact, one of the albums he helped record won a grammy.
Photo provided by Rain Zhou
But putting together such a project is no easy task. “Even the smallest artistic projects can be challenging,” Rain notes. “You have to be patient and passionate enough to bear with it.”
The kickstarter campaign will be live until Friday, November 20th. Even though they have already reached their initial goal, they are attempting to raise $500 more dollars to be able to record an extra song. Their campaign can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/571384465/the-last-bow
