About Bright Dog Red

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Bright Dog Red (BDR), an improvising collective from Albany, New York, recently leased In Vivo, a live album. In Vivo is the ensemble’s fourth release since signing to Ropeadope in 2018.

From its inception, Bright Dog Red has pursued a singular approach to making music. Chris Sampson of the Joy Sounds Podcast explains, “Bright Dog Red is making it up as they go along, literally. All of their music is created in the moment, through free improvisation.” Each of Bright Dog Red’s Ropeadope albums reflects this same, “thoroughly improvised,” modus operandi (Downbeat).

In Vivo was captured in the course of performance, during a single set at Brooklyn's ShapeShifter Lab. The album faithfully represents the music improvised that evening, as it unfolded, in sequence, and with minimal editing.

“Starting  as a jazz-meets-hip-hop jam band with a loosely-defined membership,  Bright Dog Red has become a fixture on the NYC jazz and improvisation scene” (Jazz Journal). Increasingly recognized for “improvisation that defies categorization” (Dan Ouellette), BDR has garnered comparisons to “Mahavishnu Orchestra meets Digable Planets” (Paul Schulman), “Romantic Warrior era Return to Forever” (Rimas e Batidas), and “electronic Ahmad Jamal” (Don Lucoff), as well as to other psychedelic, jazz fusion, and hip hop luminaries.

Founded by drummer Joe Pignato, BDR is comprised of a rotating cast of players. In Vivo features Eric Person (soprano and alto saxes, flute), Tyreek Jackson (guitar), Cody Davies (sounds), Anthony Berman (acoustic bass), and Matt Coonan (poetry, freestyling). 

"Theirs is an unrivalled approach to contemporary jazz” (Blue in Green Radio, UK)