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David Borgo

David Borgo started playing alto saxophone at the age of 8. He had formative jazz experiences growing up in the Washington D.C. area, and went on to earn his B.M. in Jazz Studies at Indiana University, under the tutelage of renown jazz educator David N. Baker.

After graduation, David began touring widely, and his travel experiences in Turkey, Israel, Morocco, and more, sparked an interest in "world music" and the academic field of Ethnomusicology. He went on to earn M.A. and Ph.D. degress in the field from UCLA, studying with one of the world's preeminent Ethnomusicology faculty.

While in graduate school in Los Angeles, David performed in a wide variety of musical settings, leading his own jazz groups, and playing everything from Swing and Latin jazz, to Balkan music and Free Improvisation. In 1994, at the age of 24, David won the International John Coltrane Competition.

After earning his Ph.D. in 1999, David taught for two years at James Madison University in Virginia. Since that time he has been on the faculty at the University of California San Diego, where his is now a Full Professor of Music, teaching in the Integrative Studies graduate program and Jazz and Music of the African Diaspora undergraduate program.

David has released fourteen CDs and one DVD of original music on a variety of record labels, including Cadence Jazz, Resurgent Music, pfMENTUM, OA2 Records, and Circumvention Music. He has been fortunate to perform in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North, Central, and South America. He has also had the priviledge of learning from, and performing alongside, many of the greatest jazz musicians, including: David Liebman, Herbie Hancock, Billy Higgins, Kenny Burrell, Gerald Wilson, Harold Land, Snooky Young, George Lewis, Evan Parker, Sam Rivers, John Tchicai, Anthony Davis, and Mark Dresser.

In addition to performing his original jazz compositions with his own ensembles, David performs electro-acoustic improvisation in the duo KaiBorg (with Jeff Kaiser) and intricate polyrhythmic music with Kronomorfic (with Paul Pellegrin).

Awards

First Place, 1994 International John Coltrane Competition

Alan Merriam Prize from the Society For Ethnomusicology for his book Sync or Swarm, 2006 (now available in revised edition, 2022, Bloomsbury Academic Publishing)

Gear

David plays on vintage Selmer, Conn, and Beuscher saxophones, most often with a Rafael Navarro Bop Boy tenor mouthpiece and a Soprano Planet Missing Link mouthpiece on soprano saxophone. He also performs on a variety on non-Western and custom wind instruments and wind sythesizers, often with live electronic processing in his duo KaiBorg.


Tags

3
Album Review

David Borgo: Pathika

Read "Pathika" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


San Diego's David Borgo, a top-tier jazz saxophonist and an ethnomusicologist with a professorship day job at the University of California at San Diego, says, “Ethnomusicology is like the anthropology of music." He puts this concept into practice with his teaching for the “Semester At Sea." This educational cruise program takes students to various ports worldwide to expose them to perspective-broadening travel and first-hand experience with different cultures. The students benefit; the teachers do, too. Borgo, ...

7
Multiple Reviews

A Pair From Saxophonist David Borgo

Read "A Pair From Saxophonist David Borgo" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


When saxophonist David Borgo is not attending to his teaching duties at UC San Diego (Integrated Studies and Jazz Music of the African Diaspora Programs) he immerses himself in the art of jazz, recording and performing. He has released twelve CDs and he performs regularly in his adopted hometown, San Diego. Writing for All About Jazz, reviewer Frank Roboliino says of the artist: “Borgo has the history of music down pat...he touches on the past, teases with the future, but ...

118
Album Review

David Borgo: Reverence for Uncertainty

Read "Reverence for Uncertainty" reviewed by Budd Kopman


The simple cardboard sleeve of Reverence for Uncertainty is decorated with what looks like clouds against a sunset, evoking a feeling of openness and freedom, of detachment from the ground and the mundane. The music is quite remarkable and Borgo is quite a player, with a wonderful sound and total control over his instruments. According to the notes, all tracks are collective improvisations while tracks #2, 4, 8, and 12 involve pre-composed material by Borgo and tracks ...

127
Album Review

David Borgo: Massanetta Springs

Read "Massanetta Springs" reviewed by Frank Rubolino


David Borgo, who is a jazz educator at the university level, emits a relaxed, breathy tone from his tenor saxophone to give his improvisations a lilting quality. He plays with groups ranging from trio to sextet on this multi-hued recording comprised mostly of his compositions. Borgo has the history of the music down pat; his tunes offer a flavoring of post-bop structure, but he steers the bands unerringly into the current era through his gliding improvising style and tune construction. ...

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Recording

David Borgo, with and Against, 1998

David Borgo, with and Against, 1998

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards

I've been covering David Borgo's music on these pages with a number of postings (do a search in the search box to find the others). That's because I find him one of the important West Coast voices today, as tenor-soprano stylist and as composer-conceptualist. If I retrace steps today to go back to one of his first (if not THE first), it's because I find it a worthwhile listen, and also because it is still available on CD Baby. I ...

Borgo has the history of the music down pat... He touches on the past, teases with the future, but mainly speaks in the present tense. – Frank Rubolino, All About Jazz "His music is often incredibly kaleidoscopic and diverse, embracing a huge range of aesthetics." –Jazz Corner There's a wonderful energy running throughout ... This is great music played with passion by great players. – Michael Bettine, Jazz Now ... [a] modernist with a large record collection, big ears, and like-minded colleagues. – Stuart Kremsky, Cadence On soprano Borgo weaves delicate patterns across the music, while on other tracks he sets a classic big-hearted tenor sound in dialogue with avantgarde spikiness

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