A.G.N.Z.

Four powerful jazz artists in mid-career, all with New England roots and impressive experience, come together in one explosion of brilliant light, to produce ten originals, full of purposeful playing and sublime solos. Chance meeting indeed! Perhaps though it’s not a coincidence that drummer Adam Nussbaum, bassist Dave Zinno, guitarist Jay Azzolina, and saxophonist Dino Govoni met at all. Together, the first-call quartet fuses beautifully on their debut play date together. Presiding over the session seems to be the musical spirit of Michael Brecker, Govoni and the band’s collective inspiration and the launching pad for much of the work on Chance Meeting. With Brecker in mind, the four musicians—educators, bandleaders, conductors and original artists—form a single dynamic enterprise, playing with the confidence of visionaries that have the same elevated goal: to reach a new level not as individuals, but as a team, as an exhilarating ensemble with multiple talents but read more...