Downtown Phoenix's art scene is hard to exactly quantify in some
respects, with creativity running amok across multiple genres
and mediums. Hyphenates abound as musicians, DJs, painters, and
other talented types collaborate and feed off each other's
muses. So it's apropos that one of the art scene's more pre-
eminent bands, Sunorus, is equally unquantifiable. Nominally a
jazz quintet, this eccentric musical cabal's ever-changing sound
ebbs and flows through realms of blues, ragtime, funk, and Latin
rhythms. They're almost like the long-lost cousins to DeVotchKa,
or a traveling bohemian circus of sound. Experimentalism is the
norm, and many songs are born from improvisational sessions
where lines between genres are blurred. One song ("Whiskey") is
a tempestuously aching torch song with the lovely Lonna Kelley
on vocals and a laconic burn from alto sax player Mark Stinson,
while another number ("The Ghost of Mingus Mountain") flows with
eerie horns and a deep Charlie Mingus-like groove courtesy of
upright bassis