Mike Casey
The Complete Public Access: WPAA TV Session

jazz

"The Los Angeles saxophonist uses a jazz framework to explore expansive multi-genre, multicultural sonic pathways".
— Bandcamp

Recorded during his first post-covid tour via on-air public broadcast television in Wallingford, CT one month before Mike moved across the US to Los Angeles in spring 2022, this live session captures Mike's longtime trio - finalists in the jazz world's largest ensemble based competition DC Jazz Festival DCJazzPrix - at a creative peak.

Originally released as a 4 track EP in 2023 which was awarded in Amazon Music's "Best Jazz Of 2023", with extensive support from Jazz FM (rotation), mainstream BBC & even Triple J shows and national radios around the world, 2 new additional tracks "Iguana Crossing" - bridging calypso & jazz - and "Faith" - mixing americana/folk influences with jazz - have been unearthed from the session and are newly released, converting the EP to an album.

From funky soul-jazz ('Space Chill') to variations on the Moroccan Chaabi ('Remote', which Mike originally composed for Netflix show "Spy Ops" - other songs of his made it into the show) to the westerly 'Dusty Wheel' inspired by Mike's cross country drives through the Great American West to 'Ahava' honoring his roots and the Caribbean calypso leaning 'Iguana Crossing', the Americana leaning 'Faith', this album is highly diverse and showcases his trio of 10 years walking the tight rope about a half an hour south of where they met in Hartford, CT (Mike & bassist Matt Dwonszyk initially at the Greater Hartford Academy for the Arts, and Corey Garcia at Jackie McLean Institute / Hartt). From their first gig at a local coffee shop to the Kennedy Center, Mike, Matt & Corey have evolved over several albums with a distinct take on the sax/bass/drums trio format, even being featured by the format's originator himself - jazz icon Sonny Rollins - for Mike's debut in 2017.

“Listening back now, there is definitely an urgency in the music, it feels like maybe we subconsciously felt that it might have been the last time we were going to play together, at least regularly, for a while, since I was moving to Los Angeles about one month later”, says Casey.

“I’m very proud of how much we’ve grown together over the years - we’ve developed a lot of trust together as a band. I emerged from covid with about 20 new compositions I was trying to record. Some we got at this TV taping, others we got days later at Firehouse 12 studio in New Haven which will be released at a later time. In any case, to come back “cold” with so much new music to learn was quite the thrilling challenge for all of us” especially since all 3 of us were actually recovering from covid about a month prior.
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