The Industrial Jazz Group is a 15-ish-piece large ensemble that plays the inventive, challenging and often hilarious music of composer Andrew Durkin. That sentence, though, doesn’t come close to doing them justice. The band, made up of musicians fluent in jazz, classical and rock — and inspired by the free-for-all spirit of Frank Zappa — is a force of nature, slinking, striding and crashing through Durkin’s charts with an obvious love for the group’s collective sound. In this interview, Durkin talks about how the band grew from its original trio formation; how comedy works to the group’s advantage; and how he’s used social networking sites to expand the band’s audience. The Industrial Jazz Group is on an East Coast tour through 10/24. Dates and locations are available at IndustrialJazzGroup.com.

For more on the IJG, head over to Popdose and read my review of their show in Pittsfield, MA.

If you’d like to buy their album, Leef (Evander, 2008), you can support The Jazz Session by purchasing it via the link below: