Going ‘Farther’ than ever: For Mike Dana, a dream jazz ensemble leads to a new album
By A.N. Patterson
‘Farther (still)”, the new album from the Mike Dana Jazz Orchestra, was released today (Friday, Sept. 18), and the early responses have been positive. Paris Move, an international music magazine based in the United Kingdom, gave it an early five-star review.
“I think this is the best work I know how to do,” Dana said in describing the album.
A Fresno jazz musician and composer, Dana has spent decades working in music education and performance. He formerly led the jazz studies program at Fresno City College, bringing internationally recognized jazz talent to work directly with Central Valley students.
Dana’s latest project, which was released through Seattle-based Origin Records, is the work of what he described as his dream jazz ensemble. The project featured saxophonists Bob Mintzer, Tim Ries, and Eric Marienthal, trumpeters Ingrid Jensen, Wayne Bergeron, and Aaron Janik, trombonists Alan Ferber and Alex Iles, as well as percussionist Brian Kilgore. For Dana, the guest musicians, complimented by the meticulous production of George Stone, elevated the compositions beyond what he imagined.
Seven of the album’s nine tracks are Dana’s original compositions, alongside two jazz standards. He approaches the standards not as simple covers, but as opportunities to find something new within familiar material.
The album’s title carries a personal meaning for Dana. “Farther (still)” was inspired by a close friend, Paul Shaghoian, who died unexpectedly in 2004. The title track on the album became a piece dedicated to Shaghoian’s memory. On the title track, saxophonist and longtime college friend of Shaghoian Tim Ries performs a solo that was especially compelling to Dana.
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“He’s playing his saxophone solo, and there’s parts of the music where you can hear the loss,” said Dana. “As a composer, there’s things I do with chords and harmony and orchestration to help you feel the emotions more strongly, but then Tim came along and just took it to the next level.”
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One of the challenges that Dana navigated in the production of this album was the geographical distance of the ensemble members. However, this problem was easily alleviated by allowing the musicians to record their parts individually and send them electronically to Stone.
An initial worry of Dana’s was that the process might sacrifice the spontaneous and beautifully imperfect play that defines jazz, but Stone’s work in production alleviated the worry. During production, many of the beautiful imperfections were specially preserved to give the music an unpredictable and compelling quality.
“Farther (still)” by the Mike Dana Jazz Orchestra is available on all streaming platforms.
A. N. Patterson is a philosophy major at Fresno State studying aesthetics and psychoanalysis. He is an intern for The Munro Review, a position paid for by a grant received by the university from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. .
