NO COVER 4:30pm Show
Bassist Anthony Cox, guitarist Dean Granros, and trombonist JC Sanford will perform two sets of blended jazz standards and collective improvisation.
Anthony Cox is an internationally renowned arranger, composer, performer, recording artist, and educator. His career has spanned over 30 years of music education, composition, and performance, encompassing an extensive list of collaborations, performances, and recordings with notable artists in the field of jazz. The list includes Sam Rivers, Joe Lovano, Geri Allen, Kenny Wheeler, Ed Blackwell, Billy Higgins, John Scofield, The NDR Big Band, Dino Saluzzi, and Henry Threadgill.
Over the past 50 years, Dean Granros has developed a unique voice on the guitar. Of Granros’s playing, New York Times jazz critic Nate Chinen wrote: "It was … inarguable in its logic, and to my ears it definitely qualified as something new." As soloist, Granros explores the intersections of world music and jazz to create a tapestry of musical color and mood.
After spending 16 years in New York City as a professional musician, trombonist/composer JC Sanfordreturned to Minnesota in 2016. His most recent projects include New Past—a trio with pianist Michael Cain and bassist Anthony Cox—and his Imminent Standards Trio, which released recordings in 2021 and 2022. He has regularly been recognized as a “Rising Star” trombonist in DownBeat Critics Poll over the past several years, and he is the conductor of the thrice-Grammy-nominated John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble. JC has performed as a trombonist with the likes of Danilo Pérez, Matt Wilson, and George Schuller, and he has been an ensemble member in groups such as Nathan Parker Smith’s prog-rock big band, Andrew Green’s film noir tribute Narrow Margin, singer-songwriter Joy Askew’s New York Brass, and Joseph C. Phillips Jr.’s jazz/new music hybrid Numinous. He received a 2018 McKnight Composer Fellowship and has received several Minnesota State Arts Board grants in recent years. He currently co-leads the modern jazz orchestra Inatnas Orchestra with his award-winning wife, composer Asuka Kakitani. His new project, EQ (Electric Quartet), features a more "plugged-in" approach that utilizes electronics over a mix of originals and standards.
