My latest album, Mazurka for a Modern Man, was the culmination of a compositional project I completed in 2007, working with percussionist Take Toriyama, guitarist Nate Radley and other musicians living in New York City; the core of the musicians shared a broad vocabulary from ten years of playing together almost weekly: Balkan folk music, Indian tihais, drum'n'bass, electronica, rock, and of course, jazz and improvised music. We completed 14 compositions in the studio in April 2007; nine of these tracks were released on Mazurka, highlighting the contributions of Take, who passed away less than two weeks after the recording dates. The album is being released in March 2010, see elsewhere on this site for order information and MP3 samples.

With the loss of my musical comrade, Take, I felt it was a time for a change in compositional focus and a fresh start. With so many world renown musicians here in New York, this was the perfect time for me to focus on my career as a jazz sideman while I explored some new compositional areas in private. From 2006-2008, I undertook compositional analysis studies with Professor Donna Doyle, a former student of Nadia Boulanger's. My studies focused on counterpoint, Schenkerian analysis, and more, studying symphonies, string quartets, fugues and other works of the great classical composers, while honing my own compositional and arranging skills. Having composed a small body of chamber music, I look forward to developing my work in this area and presenting further works to the public via concerts and recordings in the years to come.

Having further established myself in the NYC jazz scene, I'm now ready to jump back into the musical scene as a leader. I have a number of projects in mind for the next few years including a straight up jazz album; a project exploring Indian and Karnatic influences with guitar, keyboard and tabla; Ensemble Aletheia, a chamber music project with 4 horns and doublebass; a solo bass album; string quartets and more. Per usual, I have numerous works already written for some of the above, their realization being limited by the realities of time, rehearsal, and financing.

More on individual projects, past and present:

Mazurka for a Modern Man - 2010
the culmination of my first NYC compositional project from 2007 featuring Take Toriyama, Nate Radley, Loren Stillman, and Dave Smith. The music explores an amalgam of my musical influences from the Indian tihai on Dithyramb, drumnbass aesthetic of Crus Bifurcatus and the Sephardic inspired melody of Ashlayah to the grunge guitar of Mazurka and trumpet/accordion/string trio chamber group of Moja Tesknota.

Ensemble Aletheia
A wind quartet with doublebass, exploring the synthesis of modern chamber music with improvisatory elements.  Instrumentation features acoustic bass, flute, alto sax, clarinet, and trumpet. I also anticipate adding oboe on some of the newer compositions projected.

Kakalla

Kakalla was my primary compositional outlet for 8 years, before I moved to New York City in 2003. It featured a quartet of trumpet, guitar, doublebass, and guitar and often added tenor sax as well as accordion/violin. The music is "synthetic" in character, influences ranging from jazz, Balkan folk music, rock, electronica, to chamber music and more. I amassed an ouevre of about 90 compositions for the group and released 4 projects/albums.

The Seeds of Analog Rebellion - 2004
the culmination of the group's output from 2003 after 4 years of performing on a weekly basis as a quartet

The Voice of Twilight - 2002
a quartet configuration and the first album finding our "sound" with the addition of guitarist Nate Radley

The Voice of Silence - 2001
A sextet version of Kakalla adding accordion and violin and focusing on Balkan, tango, and chamber music influences; the project is released and available via digital download only.

The Voice of Blood - 2000
This was the first incarnation of Kakalla, a quartet or quintet featuring trumpet, tenor sax, guitar, acoustic bass, and drums.  Released on Weltschmerz Records in 2001.

Grid-X - 2003-2004

This project is a studio collaboration with recording engineer Warren Amerman devoted to the electronic manipulation of acoustic instruments.  Music ranges from ambient textures and techno grooves to noise and the avant-garde. As well, we completed an electronica score for the full length film Magdalena's Brain, released in November 2004. The project features Nate Radley on guitar/electronics, Jerry Sabatini on trumpet, Take Toriyama and Mike Connors on drums and percussion, and myself on bass and electronics.