Born: December 2, 1974 Primary Instrument: Sax, tenor
Jason Rigby is an assured New York-based musician whose jazz mixes conventional and “outside” improvisation in stirring fashion. His recent release “Translucent Space” (Fresh Sound Records), is garnering rave reviews and applause, putting Rigby’s name firmly on the map of New York’s creative music scene.
Rigby’s individuated saxophone tone and improvisational approach draw inspiration from such jazz pantheon figures as John Coltrane, Joe Henderson and Dewey Redman, and he has been described as displaying “a brilliant virtuosity & flexibility while handling some very complex harmonic lines & intervals.” (George W. Carroll, The Musician’s Ombudsman, May 06)
As an impressive composer meriting wider recognition, Rigby has developed his compositional style after having listened long and hard to primary compositional influences Wayne Shorter, Philip Glass, Ornette Coleman, and classical greats Mahler, Bartok and Shostakovich.
Originally from Cleveland, OH, his formal music studies were done at Youngstown State University in Ohio, DePaul University in Chicago and the Manhattan School of Music. Rigby has studied saxophone and composition privately with Dick Oatts, Mike Abene and Rich Perry and was voted “Best College Jazz Instrumentalist” by DownBeat magazine in 1999.
Just 32-years-old, Rigby is active on the New York jazz scene. Career highlights so far include working with the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; playing in Aretha Franklin’s band at Radio City Music Hall; and participating in a Cameron Brown-helmed project concerning Don Cherry jazz from the mid-‘60s. Rigby’s also a regular sideman with the Scott Dubois Quintet and at times with Mike Holober’s Gotham Jazz Orchestra, the Kris Davis Group and Eivind Opsvik’s Overseas, and the list of colleagues with whom he has performed only starts with notables David Leibman and Tony Malaby. He has taught at the New School (NYC), City College of NY and Stony Brook University and maintains a private jazz saxophone studio in NYC.
Primary Instrument:
Sax, tenor
Location:
New York, NY
Willing to teach:
Advanced students only.
![Download jazz mp3 “Southampton [UK]” by Jason Rigby](http://www.freshsoundrecords.com/cp_images/c4344.jpg)
