Aaron Bennett – Tenor Saxophone | John Finkbeiner – Guitar | Lisa Mezzacappa – Acoustic Bass | Vijay Anderson – Drums.All compositions by Lisa Mezzacappa (c) 2013 except: Old by Roscoe Mitchell (ASCAP) and Luna by Chico Freeman (ASCAP) Continue reading
I’m a sucker for the thick, bluesy tone of Adam Lane’s bass — somehow, he always manages to convey its grittiest, most grounded side. Absolute Horizon kicks off with a track of the same name, a slow tattoo rising from drummer Vijay Anderson and Lane stumbling into a bass line that can’t help but give off a little swagger. Slowly, a groove coalesces, just the sort of low-end ride to best deliver Darius Jones’s sickly-sweet saxophone. Within minutes, you realize: this is what I want in a saxophone trio. There’s an edge for sure, but also the piece that fits perfectly into the well-worn rhythmic folds of your brain. Things heat up, but the trio never breaks a sweat. They ease out of the track just a coolly and calmly as they brought it into being. — Dan Sorrells Continue reading
Vinny Golia has made some unusual choices. In 1973, he moved from New York to Los Angeles, away from the centre of the jazz universe to the more cooperative Left Coast scene. He established his musician-run New Winds label in the 1980s, the start of tough times for the record biz. He also bucked conventional wisdom to concentrate on just one or two instruments, devising a rotating practice schedule to master the full families of saxophones, flutes and clarinets, as well as shakuhachi, bassoon, and so many other winds that his Penguin Guide to Jazz list ends with “etc.” —Lawrence Joseph Continue reading
Vijay Anderson is a freelance drummer, bandleader, and teacher who lives and works in Oakland, California. He has been performing professionally in the Bay Area since 1997. He holds a MFA in music performance from Mills College, where he studied with Roscoe Mitchell, William Winant, David Bernstein, and Fred Frith. He earned his BA in music performance from S.F. State, studying under Eddie Marshall, Francis Wong, Hafez Modirzadeh, and Wayne Wallace. Anderson has performed and recorded with such diverse, outstanding musicians as Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalists Lynn Johnston and Vinny Golia, Bay Area composers/performers Ben Goldberg, Sheldon Brown, John Schott, Graham Connah, Darren Johnston, Smith Dobson V, Lisa Mezzacappa, Aaron Bennett and Ava Mendoza, and Austria-based saxophonist/composer Marco Eneidi. He also has worked extensively with Brooklyn based bass player/composer Adam Lane as part of Lane’s Full Throttle Orchestra, the Adam Lane Trio featuring Vinny Golia, and Adam Lane’s Blue Spirit Band featuring Avram Fefer and Roy Campbell.
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