Tony Dagradi, A Spiritual Approach to Jazz

Tony Dagradi is best known as the leader of the New Orleans modern-jazz group Astral Project, which he has made his life project. Yet he has had several other important threads in his forty-year career: serving a series of informal apprenticeships with experimental jazz, soul, and rhythm and blues artists in the 1970s; playing, touring, and recording with Professor Longhair, 1978-80; doing the same with the Carla Bley Band, 1980-85; partnering with the bassist Ramsey McLean in the early 1980s; performing in a longstanding trio with James Singleton and John Vidacovich; making recordings as a sideman with many New Orleans jazz and popular musicians; and teaching at Loyola University of New Orleans as well as writing some important pedagogical materials on jazz saxophone. Drawing on interviews with Tony and some 40 other New Orleans musicians as well as an inconceivable quantity of other research, this book examines all facets of his career and his recordings as leader and sideman. Essential reading for fans of Tony, Astral Project, New Orleans music, and jazz saxophone.