Frequently Asked Questions

1. How did you get the name?

The story of the name Zrazy is still unravelling itself. Years ago, when we had a band but no name, a show coming up and one day left to decide, we had some friends round to dinner. One friend suggested opening a book at any page and seeing what came up. Maria took up her trusty Woman's Own Cookery Book, which she had been using that evening, and it opened  at "Zrazy à la Nelson", a beefy dish from Russia or Poland. On seeing the name Nelson, Carole's second name, our friends threw up their hands and said "It's a sign!" Being ever ready to recognise signs along the way, we pondered Zrazy à la Nelson, then Zrazy à la Walsh, then settled for the short but perfectly formed, Zrazy.

The next day, the day of final decision, Maria said "well it looks like it's still Zrazy after all these years" and we both went "YES!"

Soon, another meaning came along. A Russian friend of our then manager informed us that Zrazy was slang for 'right now!' or 'hip' in Russian beat circles. That felt good.

Then just recently, after a show in Chicago, a Polish woman asked us how we got the name. We told her the story. Then she said "Well it is an amazing thing and surely the name found you, because there is another meaning to Zrazy. The 'razy' part of the word means 'races' or 'peoples' and the Z upfront means 'with' or 'together with'. Hence the full meaning is one of unity, all the peoples together. Coincidence or guided? Whichever, we are so happy to be Zrazy.

2. What are your musical backgrounds?

Carole: I started playing piano as a child and continued with classical lessons till I was eighteen. I had an inspirational teacher who traced a line of tuition back to Lizst, Czerny and Beethoven. Although I loved playing classical music I was more drawn to pop and rock and began playing by ear and making up songs at an early age. I was encouraged to think about studying music at university but I was too wild for that world. I loved Janis Joplin and Joni Mitchell. At seventeen I was asked to join a touring/recording all female rock group called Mother Superior but I couldn't defy my parents expectations of getting a degree.

After college I threw myself into all London could offer, playing with bands, theatre groups, forming my own all-womens' band the Spoilsports and lots more. In my mid twenties I wanted to travel so I bought an alto saxophone and took it with me to Spain. I taught myself there, out among the olive trees of Andalusia. I returned to London at a time when life was good for women musicians. A lot of bands and energy. I played everything I could; reggae, funk, blues, big-band, jazz, free-improv, pop. I worked with great R&B and jazz  singers like Carol Grimes, Maggie Nichols and Jan Ponsford. In 1985 I moved to Dublin and met Maria. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Maria: I grew up on a farm in rural Tipperary. The music I experienced as a child was classical, school recorder band, soprano through to tenor - good fun but limited.  I had a good piano teacher but classical theory drained my brain. At home I would spend hours at the piano playing anything I heard by ear. I was into film soundscores rather than the pop music on the radio. Irish radio was also filled with very bad country & western. Showbands were the only live music around. As I was locked away in the convent boarding school/prison, I didn't get exposed to much music outside. But during my holidays I loved the heavier blues progressive rock like Rory Gallagher, Taste, The Who, John Mayall and then at 14, Tapestry by Carole King entered my heart. Joni Mitchell was beyond me until much later.

So music was simply not encouraged and never seen as an option to live from. And so I reached it much later in life. I think that hearing Ella Fitzgerald sing for the first time really lit my desire to sing seriously. I wanted to think of my voice as an instrument like hers. I started to learn the flute and experiment with improvisation for the first time, the blues harp and taught myself the Irish bodhran (drum) but my voice is what I am. I keep focusing inward on breath and tone and seek to express an authentic self without cliché or affectation.

3. How come your third CD, Private Wars, is so different from the first two, Give it All Up and Permanent Happiness?

We made our first two CDs using the technology we had available in our small project studio. Right back in the beginning of Zrazy we had a six piece band which collapsed under money pressure. We decided to take the computer/sequencer route, which neither of us knew much about but set about mastering (or mistressing). We enjoyed the creative freedom this allowed... a sense of moving from black and white into full colour. Both Give it All Up and Permanent Happiness were made on minimum budgets with no additional musicians involved. Then in 1999 we received an Irish Arts Council Award for contemporary composition in the field of jazz/new music and proceeded to make a purely jazz album. This was something we had spoken of for a while and it gave us the opportunity to work with excellent musicians. Private Wars also gave us both an opportunity to explore greater subtleties in voice and saxophone. We wanted to make a consistently mellow album, moving away from the techno-pop-funk of the first two. But who knows what will happen next?