Chris Jonas Quartet: Music from the Deserts

Music from the Deserts is a project of Santa Fe-based composer and saxophonist Chris Jonas, which features Jonas on soprano and tenor sax, as well as his compositions and projected video along with special guest Diné trumpet player Delbert Anderson; plus bassist Cyrus Campell; and Jonah Minkus, drums.  Deserts explores music written in complete solitude winter camping over 3 years during the Pandemic, created in Arizona's Barry Goldwater Missile Range and the Trump Border Wall that cuts across Arizona's granite Tinajas Altas. Jonas’s music contains elements of jazz as well as other elements that are “quirky, delicate, weirdly groovy, polyphonic, and a mixture of the disjointed and melodic.”  This collection of music is being performed by various groups led by Jonas in CA, Chicago, Cleveland, New Mexico and Italy for a worldwide tour in 2023-24.  Chris Jonas has been a long time and very active artistic figure in the creative music world, working as a collaborator in video, conducting and performing with Anthony Braxton (with whom he has recorded dozens of albums, conducted orchestras, produced operas and large scale events, and toured extensively), Cecil Taylor (1996-98 as performer and musical director), William Parker (as a member of Little Huey 1992-2001), and the last summers touring the EU as a member of the Anthony Braxton Saxophone Quartet. He is also currently working in the EU and US with Myra Melford on a series of video and music pieces about painter Cy Twombly, touring the piece later in 2024. He is co-founder of the Santa Fe-based multi arts non-profit, Littleglobe) and won the United States Artists Award in 2009.