Annie Ross Short Cuts

Ray Anderson, who turns 71 on October 16, can look back on a long and eventful career. Born and raised in Chicago, he was influenced at a young age by the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, AACM for short, with musicians such as Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell and Amina Claudine Myers, but rock musicians such as James Brown, Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix were just as important to him. The jazz audience got to know Anderson in the late seventies when he played in the bands of Anthony Braxton and Barry Altschul, and he even founded the funk band Slickaphonics where he combined his avant-garde influences with danceable, humorous and razor-sharp funk. Later he played in bands such as the trombone quartet Slideride, the Pocket Brass Band, the George Gruntz Concert Jazz Band, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra and the Vienna Art Orchestra. He has worked with musicians as diverse as Erika Stucky, Henry Threadgill, John Scofield, and Dr. John. He differs from elegant co-musicians such as Jay Jay Johnson or Albert Mangelsdorff in his expressive, dirty and cheeky style. He explores all possibilities on his instrument from noises to the echoes of early jazz from New Orleans, most recently on his solo album "Marching On" from last year.