Hello.
My name is Aaron and I'd like to tell you about my band. It all started in the spring of 2005 when I needed to find musicians for my junior recital at SUNY Purchase. I was hoping for sort of a punk rock meets Bill Evans vibe and knew finding the right players was essential. Matt was an obvious choice not only because he was my roommate, but because I could trust him to play balls to the wall rock feels without the corny, "hey, look what we're doing," attitude which often creeps in when jazz drummers play rock. One of the reasons this trio works is that none of us define ourselves as being jazz musicians. We are just three people looking to play good music.
I had to look a little further than across my room to find Pete, but it was worth the effort. I remembered playing with him at a jam session, hung-over, the day after my twenty-first birthday martini extravaganza and that he had a big sound and an aggressive edge to his playing. He is a very supportive bass player and makes it hard not to swing. I barely knew him and had only played with him a couple of times but thankfully he agreed to play bass for me. I will never forget the incredible feeling of freedom I had at our first rehearsal. These two guys hook up like crazy and listen with big ears.
So we played an awesome recital and have continued to play regularly, further developing our group sound. After months of talking about making a recording of ourselves, we finally did and have put it here on myspace for you all to enjoy.
I am out to make jazz a little more relevant and a lot more fun. There are some people who would like to turn jazz into a bunch of guys in suits playing Papa Jo Jones transcriptions in concert halls, or Cherokee through the keys at a million beats per minute. While I value these activities as learning experiences, I see no reason why a listener should care or be moved by them. Jazz needs to keep moving forward and not forget that non musicians occasionally listen to music.
