Matt Rogers

John Elefante born March 18, 1958 in Levittown, New York, and his family soon moved to Long Beach, California. Growing up, he sang and performed drums for his family band, The Brotherhood. As an artist, his credits include writing and singing lead vocals on three multi-platinum albums; as producer, his albums have earned numerous Dove Awards, 4 Grammy Awards (most recently in 2000) and 10 Grammy nominations. He has maintained a close working relationship with his brother, Dino, throughout his career.

Sanchez's experience composing the Birdman score was heavily influential on the cinematic scope of The Meridian Suite, his fifth album as leader on Italian label CAM JAZZ. "The movie is basically one long continuous shot", he explains, referring to the film's illusion of being shot in a single take as it follows Michael Keaton through his Broadway breakdown. "That's also what I wanted to do with this suite; to the listener it should be seamless". The suite takes full advantage of the versatility and wide-ranging palette of Migration, the quartet that Sanchez has led since 2011. Tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake doubles on Electric Wind Instrument (EWI), John Escreet on piano and Fender Rhodes, and Matt Brewer on both acoustic and electric bass. Sanchez also layered keyboard atmospherics onto the album in post-production along with a wide array of guitars from Adam Rogers, while singer Thana Alexa contributes soaring lyrics to the second movement, "Imaginary Lines", and coloristic wordless vocals elsewhere.