JASON ROBINSON
Saxophonist, Flutist, Composer
NEXT CONCERT:
16 October 2024
Celebrating Ancestral Numbers, Jason Robinson's Janus Ensemble featuring Michael Dessen (trombone), Joshua White, (piano), Drew Gress (bass), Ches Smith (drums)
IBeam | Brooklyn, NY
ANCESTRAL DUBBERS, ANCESTRAL NUMBERS I, AND EUROPE TOUR 2024
A surprise release on 11 June 2024, Ancestral Dubbers is a special dub remix by Marcus Urani (Rising Tide, Groundation) of Second House from Jason Robinson, Ancestral Numbers I (Playscape, May 2024). A dub reimagining brings together long time friends and collaborators Robinson and Urani in a wild jazz-meets-dub soundscape featuring Robinson’s Janus Ensemble, with Robinson on tenor saxophone, Michael Dessen on trombone, Joshua White on piano, Drew Gress on bass, and Ches Smith on drums and glockenspiel, mastered by reggae engineer legend Jim Fox. Long ago and far away Urani and Robinson were part of the Sonoma County, California music scene that spawned reggae touring powerhouse Groundation, and a vibrant jazz scene that exploded in many directions. Friends and collaborators for 30 years, they team up again to introduce a new set of musical possibilities. Ancestral Dubbers is streaming everywhere on June 11 and available artist direct at jasonrobinson.bandcamp.com. Full length video available exclusively at youtube.com/jasonrobinsonmusic.
Released on 14 May 2024, Ancestral Numbers I is the first in a series of two new albums that feature a quintet version of Robinson's Janus Ensemble. Robinson is joined by trombonist Michael Dessen, pianist Joshua White, bassist Drew Gress, and drummer Ches Smith. The subsequent album in the series, Ancestral Numbers II, is scheduled for release in October 2024, which will be accompanied by a series of tour dates in the US Northeast. Meanwhile, Robinson heads to Europe in July 2024 to perform with GROWLER, a new group that reunites Robinson with long time musical friends, bassist Scott Walton (Cosmologic, Trummerflora) and trombonist Christopher Robin Cox (51st Monkey), along with several new collaborators. Concerts in France, Czechia, and Hungary.
About Jason Robinson
The music of American composer, saxophonist, flutist, and scholar Jason Robinson ("rugged and scintillating," New York Times) thrives in the fertile overlaps between improvisation and composition, acoustic music and electronics, tradition and experimentalism. Initially a devotee of post-1960s jazz and creative music, Robinson is celebrated for bringing together various historical directions in jazz--bebop, post-bop, the avant-garde--with an improvisatory and compositional sensibility drawn from and extending the languages of John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Lester Young. His musical interests, however, span far and wide. Born in 1975, he is a critically acclaimed distinctive voice in a generation of creative musicians in equal dialogue with jazz, popular music, experimental music, and electronic music.