Ping Machine

This experimental jazz outfit must fill two or three buses when they go on tour--they've got enough musicians to create the sound of a full orchestra. The brass section is particularly strong, boasting tubas, trumpets, and trombones. The woodwinds often give a soothing contrast to the bravado of the horns, while the bass walks a zig zagging line through it all. Ping Machine comes from Paris, where their avant-garde sound is perhaps just the regular-garde, but for the rest of us their sound is really unique.