The Rocklopedia Fakebandica now has a podcast.
Listen now!
Zoot Finster Octet
Fictional, recurring jazz band from the "Out of My Head" humor column (1959-1965?) in Downbeat magazine, written by Ed Sherman under the pseudonym George Crater.
Zoot (born Maxwell Thornton Finster), had a shifting cast of band members. Here's the lineup given in an April 11, 1963 column for their live album At Sun Valley:
- Zoot Finster, tenor saxophone
- Miles Cosnat, trumpet
- Gimp Lymphly, gorkaphone
- Humphrey Nurturewurst, trombone
- Milt Orp, marimba
- Strimp Grech, cello
- Rudell Benge, guitar
- Sticks Berklee, drums
Other members may or may not have included Zig Priff, Prez Glick, Quincy Cohn, and Thelonius Crasner.
"Crater" also released a spoken word comedy album with a lot of jazz references, Out Of My Head (1960, Riverside RLP 841).
Other references
Occasional, minor joke references to Zoot were made by other writers in other periodicals. Here's a Billboard article of Jan. 25, 1960, noting
UA has signed the Zoot Finster Octet to a long exclusive pact. A change in the group's line-up now has Zig Priff on trumpet. Anatasia Lefcourt, jazz and blues singer, has also been added.
References to Zoot and his crew continued after Sherman's death in 1965; here's one from the "Jazz" column of Michael Cuscuna, appearing in the May 5, 1973 issue of Record World magazine:
The DUJ label, run by Bones Monroe Constantine, is expanding with the signing of veteran saxophonist Zoot Finster's group with Miles Cosnat, the blues duo of Blind Orange Julius and Blind Lemon Pledge and the English rock band Stiggy Topes & the Turds. A reissue "Buddy Bolden's Greatest Hits" is also in the works. Constantine is working on Finster's new album, which will include strings and brass in the DUJ tradition. Finster will debut as a producer for the label working with The New Thing Quintet. Constantine said that he is bullish on sacchrine [sic] black music and expects his operation to expand very quickly.
A 1990 documentary film about the jazz scene of Sydney, Australia, Beyond El Rocco, featured fictional Zoot as the narrator, played by Tony Barry.
In the 1997 novel The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor, a saxophone-playing bear is described as "...possibly the best altoist to show up in New York since Zoot Finster."
