Chris DeRosa on Drums, Ian Brand on Bass, Joe Charupakorn on Guitar and some really talented friends!
Influences
Jack Dejohnette’s New Directions, Bass Desires, Wayne Johnson Trio, Weather Report, Allan Holdsworth, Pat Metheny, Modal/Fusion music, and 70's and 80's ecm.
Monkfish is the brainchild of drummer Chris DeRosa. He and a few friends starting holding a weekly jam session at Chris’ studio in the L.E.S. of Manhattan. The group wanted to expand the typical Jazz concepts of playing light/soft acoustic Jazz or “traditional” Swing exclusively by allowing their more aggressive Rock and contemporary influences to come through in their performance.
Monkfish is more an improvisational experiment influenced by Jack Dejohnette’s New Directions, Bass Desires, Wayne Johnson Trio, Weather Report, Allan Holdsworth, Pat Metheny, 70's and 80's ecm, Modal/Fusion music, and Jaco’s "Punk Jazz" thing. Along with a Modern Jazz repertoire the group focuses on original compositions and total improvisations as well.
Although the main core of the group is Chris DeRosa on Drums, Ian Brand on Bass, and Joe Charupakorn on Guitar the cast of characters has included David Ullmann, Mark Lau, Gab Bowler, Iakov Krememskiy, Jack Shneidman, Brian Holtz, Vlad West, Kevin Reilly, Josiah Woodson, Hideaki Onishi, Arthur Rotfeld, Leron Thomas, Dustin Carlson, Dan Ori, Issac Darche, Danny Zanker, George Kormendi, Romauld Filizot, and Francesco Beccaro among others.
We are trying to continue to hold the evolutionary torch of Jazz and improvisational music by honoring and remembering the past while creating its future.
