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Astral Project

Astral Project - band/ensemble

Over the past 30 years, the New Orleans band Astral Project has evolved from a jazz group that played four or five nights a week on Bourbon Street or at Tyler’s Beer Garden where bassist James Singleton, drummer Johnny Vidacovich and keyboard player David Torkanowsky, who left in 2001 were the house rhythm section to the city’s preeminent contemporary jazz group. That endurance surprises Vidacovich but not guitarist Steve Masakowski, the junior member of the group having only been with it for 20 years. “Whether we’d be playing together with Astral Project or not, I’d still be playing with all these guys.”

Keeping any relationship together for 30 years is remarkable. Think of how many good bands with every reason to stay together couldn’t do it. And in jazz, think of how many great combos were together for only an album or two. For Astral Project, lasting this long has as much to do with what it isn’t as what it is.

Saxophonist Tony Dagradi, a devoted student of Eastern philosophy, coined the band name as a reflection of the group's quest for a higher plane. As anyone who has seen the band in concert knows, every performance finds the band members reaching for the stars.

These veteran musicians -- known as tops on their instruments in jazz-rich New Orleans, each with many album credits as leaders and sidemen -- bring a wealth of diverse experience to the bandstand, which is why the group journeys into different musical spheres.

Founded in 1978 by saxophonist Dagradi, who started the group because “I wanted to have a place where I could do anything I wanted,” he says. Throughout the band’s life, though, everybody has had other gigs, and that’s certainly the case today. “Our individual careers have always been a part of the band,” he says. He is a full professor at Loyola, where he has taught since 1990. Although it’s currently inactive, he also leads the New Orleans Sax Quartet. Masakowski teaches as well. When University of New Orleans started its jazz studies program 17 years ago, he was brought on as faculty, and now he chairs the department. Vidacovich tours off and on with Joe Sample, plays weekly at the Maple Leaf with George Porter, Jr. and a guest in the Trio, and he regularly plays duo and trio gigs at d.b.a. with a rotating cast of collaborators.

Before Katrina, Singleton played bass with Rob Wagner and had 3Now4, a duo with pedal steel Dave Easley that frequently expanded to a trio that included sax player Tim Green. He put together other permutations on that group including the 3Now4estra and his string quartet. Then, after Katrina, he relocated to Los Angeles, where he has an active professional life. The move, though, hasn’t created problems.

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129
Album Review

Astral Project: VooDooBop

Read "VooDooBop" reviewed by Ed Kopp


The five members of Astral Project are among New Orleans' finest musicians. Each has an impressive resume that extends beyond jazz to rock, blues, pop, funk, R&B -- the whole gamut of Crescent City musical styles. These dudes form an amazingly tight unit, no doubt owing to their 20-plus years of playing together. VooDooBop is packed with fluent musical conversations that seem almost extrasensory.Recorded in a French Quarter mansion, VooDooBop was produced by John Fischbach, who mixed and ...

224
Album Review

Astral Project: Elevado / New Orleans LA

Read "Elevado / New Orleans LA" reviewed by Jack Bowers


There's an abundance of heat and creative energy flowing from the epicenter of Astral Project, a New Orleans-based quintet whose ethereal name belies its usual choice of straight-ahead bop-influenced Jazz with a Crescent City ambiance. While saxophonist Dagradi seems to be the main man, everyone in the ensemble has a well-defined role to play, and consummates it without mishap. The dozen tunes on Elevado (all of which were written by members of the group including “Carnival" by pianist Mike Pellera ...

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130

Video / DVD

Speaking of New Orleans: Astral Project

Speaking of New Orleans: Astral Project

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

If it has been a while since you've heard these exemplars of modern New Orleans music, now in their 32nd year, here's your chance. It's Astral Project on the road last fall at the Artists Quarter in St. Paul, Minnesota. The band is Tony Dagradi, tenor (and at the end soprano) saxophone; Steve Masakowski, guitar; James Singleton, bass; Johnny Vidacovich, drums. The name of the post-Katrina piece is “Dike Finger." Think about it.

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Down Beat calls Astral Project "one of the most distinctive and cohesive groups in jazz."

JazzTimes on Astral Project "one of the more adventurous working units in modern jazz today."

he New Orleans Times-Picayune,..... "the city¹s premier modern jazz ensemble."

The monthly music magazine OffBeat says Astral Project is "the finest modern jazz ensemble in New Orleans, and undoubtedly one of the most unique jazz groups period."

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