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Vijay Anderson

Vijay Anderson is a freelance drummer, bandleader, composer, and teacher who recently relocated to Brooklyn, New York. He has performed and recorded with Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalists Lynn Johnston and Vinny Golia; Bay Area composers/performers Ben Goldberg, Sheldon Brown, Graham Connah, Darren Johnston, Smith Dobson V, Lisa Mezzacappa, Aaron Bennett, Ava Mendoza, Hafez Modirzadeh and saxophonist/composer Marco Eneidi. He has worked extensively with bass player/composer Adam Lane as part of Lane’s Full Throttle Orchestra, the Adam Lane Trio featuring Vinny Golia, and Adam Lane’s Blue Spirit Band featuring Avram Fefer and Roy Campbell. He holds a MFA in music performance from Mills College and a BA in music performance from S.F. State.

Anderson has composed and performed original scores for filmmakers Jeff Kao and Tim Hicks as well as for projects by the Facing East Dance Company. Other notable career highlights include performing with Connie Crothers, Virg Dzurinko, Daniel Carter, Roberto Miranda, Bobby Bradford, William Roper, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Darius Jones, Prasant Radhakrishnan, Paul Smoker, John Tchicai, Wadada Leo Smith, Herb Robertson, Steve Swell, Kenny Wessel, Ken Filiano, Garrison Fewell, Karl Berger’s Stone Workshop, Steve Adams, Bishop Norman Williams, BJ Papa, the Bill Horvitz Expanded Band, Phillip Johnston, Joel Forrester, Mike Watt, Chuck Dukowski, and Slovenly Jr. (subbing for Rob Holzman).

Anderson has performed at many venues in the Bay Area and beyond, including: Yoshi’s, the Stone, Bruno's, Café Claude, the Comstock Saloon, Barbes, the Luggage Store, New Langton Arts, Headlands Center for the Arts, the Bop Shop, the Hammer Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum, the De Young Museum, and Intersection for the Arts. He also has performed at many festivals including the Monterey Jazz Festival, the San Jose Jazz Festival, the Fillmore Jazz Festival, the San Francisco Alternative Music Festival, the North Beach Jazz Festival, Cimpfest 2011 in Villach, Austria, the Novara Jazz Festival 2012 in Novara, Italy, The 2013 VDU Jazz Connections Festival in Kaunas, Lithuania, The San Francisco Jazz Festival in 2014, and the Outsound Music Festival in 2016 and 2017.

Anderson’s recorded work can be found on Cadence Jazz Records, Clean Feed, CIMP, Pax Recordings, Edgetone, Evander Music, 3 Beads of Sweat, NotTwo, NineWinds, and NoBusiness Records. He additionally leads two of his own bands, the Vijay Anderson Quartet, and the Touch and Go Sextet. His first record under his own name, entitled “Hard Boiled Wonderland” was released in August 2010 on Nottwo Records. In 2012, Anderson received a travel grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation to take the Touch and Go Sextet to the Novara Jazz Festival 2012 in Novara, Italy. A recording of this concert was released in 2014 on the NineWinds Label.

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Radio & Podcasts

Vijay Anderson, Mike Reed, Francisco Mela & Irreversible Entanglements

Read "Vijay Anderson, Mike Reed, Francisco Mela & Irreversible Entanglements" reviewed by Maurice Hogue


Some drummers in the spotlight in this episode: LA/New York's Vijay Anderson and his Silver Screen Quintet tackle an city problem on the new Urban Jungle Los Angeles , while Chicago's Mike Reed explores loneliness and isolation on his new The Separatist Party. Francisco Mela teams up with one of his students at Berklee, saxophonist Jonathan Reisin on their new Earthquake, while Brian Blade is part of the Koppel-Colley Blade Collective with Danish saxophonist Benjamin Koppel and veteran bassist Scott ...

Album Review

Ava Mendoza, Vijay Anderson, Stephen Gauci: Studio Sessions Vol. 4

Read "Studio Sessions Vol. 4" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Free jazz della più chiara (e abbastanza indiscriminata, acritica) acqua è quello che ci accoglie da subito in questo album, inciso nel febbraio 2019 e pubblicato alla fine di quello stesso anno. Vi figura uno degli elementi più interessanti delle nuove leve del jazz (in realtà classe 1983, ma si sa che oggi, musicalmente parlando, si diventa maggiorenni attorno ai quaranta) come la chitarrista Ava Mendoza, ma il deus ex machina dell'operazione, nonché editore dell'album (ricorda un po' quei ragazzini ...

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Album Review

Vijay Anderson Trio: Studio Sessions Vol. 10

Read "Studio Sessions Vol. 10" reviewed by John Sharpe


Brooklyn-based Californian drummer Vijay Anderson leads an impressively cohesive trio on Studio Sessions Vol .10. In this case cohesion is a product of shared experience. Anderson's career has been intertwined with bassist Adam Lane's since 2003, and can be heard on Zero Degree Music (CIMP, 2005), New Magical Kingdom (Clean Feed, 2006),and Absolute Horizon (NoBusiness, 2013). Likewise, clarinetist Ben Goldberg has been a long-time colleague of the drummer, as evidenced by his appearances on Hard-Boiled Wonderland (Not Two, 2010) and ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Vijay Anderson, Francois Houle & Susan Alcorn

Read "Vijay Anderson, Francois Houle & Susan Alcorn" reviewed by Maurice Hogue


One could almost make the case that this episode is a reverse sandwich, with the filling on the outside, considering the first tracks from a sizzling hot Vijay Anderson Trio and the windup tune from pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn and her fine band of Mary Halvorson, Michael Formanek, Mark Feldman and Ryan Sawyer. You could also make the case that this all tasty filling with music from Vancouver's premier clarinetist Francois Houle and his quartet, the Owl Trio from ...

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Album Review

Mendoza / Anderson / Gauci: Studio Sessions Vol. 4

Read "Studio Sessions Vol. 4" reviewed by John Sharpe


If you want to avoid compromise, then starting your own label appears a sound strategy. That's the road traveled by NYC-native saxophonist Stephen Gauci with his eponymous imprint. Since its inception in 2019, releases have been split between live recordings from the Bushwick Improvisers Series which Gauci runs and studio sessions, all of which so far have featured the reedman in a variety of settings, from his quartet with Sandy Ewen, Adam Lane and Kevin Shea, to his duo with ...

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Another Spring

New Artists Records
2022

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Covers

Self Produced
2020

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Cheryl

From: Another Spring
By Vijay Anderson

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