JC Sanford's EQ (Electric Quartet)

JC Sanford's EQ (Electric Quartet) will perform selections from their 2025 release DENKI on Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records, as well as music from their upcoming release, a collaboration with composer Scott L. Miller.

JC Sanford has been recognized in the prestigious DownBeat Magazine Critics' Poll over the past ten years, in the trombone, big band and arranger categories. While he originally built a reputation through big band writing, Sanford has forayed into many other areas, including composing for solo piano, wind and brass formations, and various mixed chamber ensembles, and often his original works defy labels such as “jazz” or “classical”. A founding member of the composers' federation Pulse (with Darcy James Argue and Joseph C. Phillips, Jr.), Sanford was a member of the BMI Jazz Composer’s Workshop led by Jim McNeely and Mike Abene for five years. His works have been performed by John Abercrombie, Lew Soloff, Dave Liebman, Danilo Perez, and a number of universities and high schools across the United States.

Trombonist/composer JC Sanford and his band, EQ (short for Electric Quartet) offer up a creative tour-de-force with Sanford’s eighth album as a leader, DENKI, Japanese for “electricity”, and also a tribute to his mentor, Bob Brookmeyer, who released an album titled “Electricity” in ’94 (with the WDR Big Band).

It would take a musician of great breadth and depth to create the music you hear on his latest and greatest, DENKI, a pastiche which can conjure up in the listener’s mind, almost simultaneously, the above-mentioned Brookmeyer, other trombone legends such as Curtis Fuller or Slide Hampton, Stevie Wonder and Black Sabbath! This is an artist who embraces inspiration when it hits, and if that means plugging in and shaking the foundation of stages and studios in the process, so be it. If that also means wearing your heart on your sleeve, so be it. 

featuring:

JC Sanford - trombone/effects

Toivo Hannigan - electric guitar/effects

Erik Fratzke - electric bass

Ben Ehrlich - drums

This concert is presented in part by Minnesota Regional Arts Council and the Musicians Performance Fund, and by our attending patrons and The Musician’s Performance Fund (Donate Here).