When the Saints go marching in... The world is a sound. A vibration. A vibe. And a groove. All too rarely does an artist succeed in capturing the laws between the stratosphere and the Earth’s core in a few tones. The trombonist Ray Anderson belongs to those mystics like Louis Armstrong or Lester Bowie before him, whose music depicts gravity and centrifugal forces, becoming and passing away as well as expansion and compression alike. And yet this is about nothing less than the measurability of the world. In addition to these physically calculable quantities, the magic of the trombonist is awakened precisely by those immeasurable spirits that we place exclusively in the realm of metaphysics and its first derivative, poetry.
The interaction of the Pocket Brass Band is reminiscent of the archaic magic of a marching band in New Orleans, mystical incantation rituals and memories of African Culture. There are no words any place in the world for the desire to engage in the challenges of the spontaneous musical moment and accept whatever happens. The band’s trust in each other enables them to take enormous risks without losing communication or the roots of their sound. The resulting music transcends all boundaries between yesterday and tomorrow. Ray Anderson has long since played everything categorically.
Growing up in Chicago, influenced early in his life by the entire spectrum of jazz history from New Orleans all the way to the innovations of the AACM , as well as Chicago blues, Motown, R&B and 60’s folk singers and rock bands, he learned from Anthony Braxton and realized, not least in the bands of Barry Altschul and Charlie Haden, that music must always tell the truth of who you are. With the Slickaphonics, he combined the avant-garde sound of New York with biting funk, and he showed with BassDrumBone that formal strictness and subtle humor do not have to stand in the way. To this day, Ray has retained his signature sound, in which the canon of tradition is perfectly blended with the pulse of the times.
The experiences from Ray Anderson’s entire career to date culminate in his miniature marching band. Immediately before the worldwide standstill caused by Corona, the trombone shaman set off with his co- conspirators Steven Bernstein on trumpet and slide trumpet, José Davila on sousaphone and drummer Tommy Campbell on the march to Glad House in Cottbus, one of those consecrated places where jazz and improvised music have enjoyed a special place for decades. The Pocket Brass Band delivers a spectacle for soul, senses and moving of ankle joints that ignites just as much in the tight club as at a drafty street corner. A pacemaker for a pants pocket and a good companion for every occasion. (Wolf Kampmann)