“…curling his sinewy lines that ”
“The guy takes off like a terrified, electrified swallow, painting notes in places you weren’t expecting to hear them.”
“Dan Magay’s alto sax snags your imagination and makes you forget everything around you except the music. The guy’s dynamite.”
“A conversational approach to the alto very akin to that of Eric Dolphy — from fierce screams to lilting melody, short staccato bursts of pure energy, or long sinewy lines of bebop-like convolution.”
“A free-sax blast of sound gripping in its precision and energy — a real breath of fresh air, even if it hits your eardrums at dangerous velocities.”
The bands - past & present.
The trio record - tunes that start as songs and end as weather. Clarinet, bass, and drums recorded live in one room.
Recorded the way it sounds when nobody is in a hurry. Physical copies exist, in the old style - write and one arrives.
A punk-jazz trio at the edge of the stage - free jazz with no wave in its teeth. Documented downtown at Northsix, Williamsburg; shared stages with Marc Ribot.
Three records in three years: Accident (2001), Trucker (2002, Innova Recordings 579 - cut live-to-tape at Systems Two, Brooklyn; mixed by Rich Keller, mastered by James Cruz at Sony Music Studios; photography by Dan Magay & Lucy Walters), and Live at Gugalander (2003), pressed from the European tour that also reached Japan.
Standards bent sideways, originals played like standards, in rooms all over the Bay - catch the late set at Zingari.
Solo sets for galleries and listening rooms - one horn, one room, no plan. The bravest music he makes.
Big-band swing with a bar-room grin - hear “Drunk in San Francisco.”
A regular horn seat around the Bay - weddings to festivals, book to memory.
From the Monterey Jazz Festival Big Band to the Burning Man Jazz Café - jazz where you least expect it.
A band of friends with an international following - proof that the best rooms are sometimes living rooms.
His own trio, his own voice. Dates land on the calendar above.
Groove, color, and a little joyful chaos. More soon.
Hot-club swing - Django in the air.
Horn-section grooves for the dance floor.
Wedding fire and festival laments - the old songs, played hot.
The Bay Area big-band tradition - Marcus Shelby & the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra.
The list grows - Dan adds projects as they form (and as the archive gives them up).
The calendar keeps its own hours - like the music. When it burns, it burns.
The archive - a history.
Dates don’t expire here - they file themselves. Two coasts, many continents and tours, twenty-five years of collaborations: a partial record, for a sense of range.
The Set.
Just a taste, not the whole menu. There's another forty years' worth of great, varied music to choose from - and more.
Book
.
Bring Dan to your stage. Duos, trios, or a full band - candlelit bossa to festival-grade fire. Rider on request. Programs as you want them: tell us the date, the space, and the feeling you want in it.