Aakash Mittal Quartet
Aakash Mittal (saxophone & flute)
Matt Fuller (guitar)
Jean-Luc Davis (Bass)
Josh Moore (drums)
Influences
Rudresh Mahanthappa, Dave Pietro, John O'Gallagher, Dave Phillips, Toney Moreno, Zakhir Hussain, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Jackie Mclean, Tony Mallaby
Aakash Mittal
Saxophonist, Flutist, Clarinetist, Composer, Educator
Hailed as a “talented young player” with “the skills to go far” by Westword (Denver), Aakash Mittal has been making a name for himself leading his own jazz quartet, which performs all original music at such venues as Dazzle Restaurant and Lounge , Bliss Café, Vita, the Ft. Collins Jazz Festival, the UNC Jazz Festival, and the Boulder Creek Festival. He also leads a standards-based jazz duo, a Brazilian duo and a classical flute and harp duet. As a sideman Mittal has played with the Jared Johnston Trio and the Bill Huston Duo, the Funk/ Rock bands “The Down Unit” and “Voodoo Brown,” as well as “The Speakeasy”, a project combining improvised music with poetry. Other musicians he has performed with include internationally acclaimed bassist Kai Eckhardt as well as local musicians Greg Harris, Dave Corbus, Gabriel Beach, Matt Fuller, and Andrew Trim. His performance experience also includes playing the woodwind book for the award winning musical “Urintown” and playing flute in the orchestra for the Loveland Opera Theater’s production of Mozart’s the Magic Flute.
As a music educator Mittal has been running a private lessons studio since 2002 and as been a faculty member at The Lesson Studio sense 2007. He has taught jazz and classical approaches to saxophone, clarinet, flute, composition, and music theory. He has also taught ensembles, including the Cherry Creek Jazz Band, the Loveland High School saxophone section, the Thompson Valley saxophone and clarinet section, the Windsor High School Clarinet and Flute section, as well as 6th grade woodwind students at Lucille Erwin Middle School. Mittal also gave a presentation to first and fifth grade students about Jazz as a guest speaker at Twin Peaks Charter School in Longmont.
Aakash Mittal has composed over 30 pieces for Jazz quartet and was commissioned to write a piece for the “Ethos West” chamber orchestra series that combines the instrumentation of a Jazz sextet with Indian instruments tabla and sitar.
In his approach to composition and improvisation, Mittal seeks to create music that relates to his diverse background of both American and East Indian heritage, drawing inspiration as much from straight-ahead jazz and the avant-garde as East Indian music and modern grooves.
Aakash Mittal received a BM in Saxophone Performance at The University of Colorado at Boulder.
Hey Aakash... Just wanted to say your music is terrific. I've been listening to the Possible Beginnings CD lately and playing along and its put me in a really good peaceful mood. Hope I can see you guys perform when I come home for Christmas Break. Keep up the good tunes. Talk to you later, Tucker
yo Aakash I just recorded a song, you should check it out, the level is low so turn it up, and speakers that support lower frequencies would sound better, I'm still mixing it
Ahh, wonderful to see you on myspace.. a lot of times i forget to check it for weeks and miss important messages. How's life? Let me know, good luck with your awesome quartet!
hey aakash. okay so i have a question.=] so im going to be playing sax in our church band. and the leader just wants me to improvise over whatever were playing with a pentatonic scale. so like if its in G major or whatever he wants me to use whatever pentatonic scale goes with that and play. but i dont know how to figure out the different pentaonic scales.
ohh yeahh and thanks for working with us all week. during the summer. =]
Monty: "Dude, I finally got the venue I wanted, I'm performing my dance quintet, you know...my cycle, at Crane's Jackson Fountain Street Theatre. I would be honored if you came and gave me notes." Dude: "I'll be there, man"
The David Thomas Bailey Quartet (with Roger Green formerly of the Czars) Dazzle, 9th and Lincoln Thursday, September 6 10:30pm $5
