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Cho-Zen Few — Future Proof
(Bandcamp Deko Entertainment no#, 2025, CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2026-05-11

Future Proof Cover art

This one has been out there for a while now, released in early 2025 some months after Aperiodic Grok, but well before Basal Ardor, the two albums (to date) by Paul Sears and Tenk van Dool. Cho-Zen Few is Paul Sears’ trio from Arizona, which features Paul on drums, percussion, and a little guitar, Ruben Riera on baritone, tenor, alto and soprano saxes, flute, alto flute and piccolo, and Steve Mitchell on bass, “hairy” guitar, and piano. Guesting is none other than Tenk van Dool, who is credited with mandolin, tanpura, six and twelve string guitar, acoustic guitar, Hammond B3, Farfisa, Mellotron, MiniMoog, guitar synthesizer, and whistling, with Dave Newhouse playing baritone sax on one cut (and he wrote another track that he doesn’t play on), and three ladies collectively known as the Cho-zettes who provide some spoken background gibberish on “Immagummy,” the same cut on which Newhouse plays bari-sax. The music across these thirteen tracks varies from gentle and melodic to flat out wild and chaotic, probably a little bit more of the latter than the former, but you can’t blame the singer because this is pretty much all instrumental, straddling the line somewhere between rock and jazz with carefree abandon. Let’s start out with “Ghost of Miles,” a five minute slab of freewheeling heavy jazz given a full-on dose of studio effects for that live-in-the-big-auditorium sound, wailing saxes and walking bass, as well as some guitar for good measure. Then there’s “Jungle Fantasy,” another wild and free jazzy movement, this time with flutes instead of saxes, but Miles could be smiling down on this one too. The thunderous power bass that opens “Loosey Goosey” gives way to some heavy rock and jazz mix, with saxes everywhere (I think the whole sax family is present on this one), eventually finding a stinging guitar solo. “Flummoxed” is the piece that Dave Newhouse wrote for the band; it starts with a really fiery sax drive then breaks into a jazzy bit for guitars and flute, then the synth comes in and everything goes full on chaos, though still a brilliant endeavor. The punchy rhythm drive of “After Dark” opens the environment with saxes and even some electric piano and guitar played through a Leslie. The closing track is “After Dark Reprise” where the same tune is remixed with different guitar parts and mandolin, the latter giving it a distinctive Mediterranean flavor. Future Proof is a great beginning, can’t wait to hear what comes next.

Filed under: New releases, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): Dave Newhouse (Manna / Mirage), Paul Sears, Tenk van Dool, Cho-Zen Few

More info
http://cho-zenfew.bandcamp.com/album/future-proof

 

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