Raffi Garabedian Octet

For Berkeley-reared tenor saxophonist Raffi Garabedian music is both a calling and a vehicle for exploring his family’s star-crossed past. A highly regarded improviser who’s performed and recorded with artists such as Brad Mehldau Trio drummer Jorge Rossy, bassist Ben Street, saxophonist Dayna Stephens, and R&B legend Johnny Talbot, Garabedian co-founded the innovative brass band Brass Magic.

A regular member of the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra and SticklerPhonics, Garabedian returns to SFJAZZ to play music from his forthcoming album, The Crazy Dog. Drawing on lyrics gleaned from letters written by his paternal grandparents, who fled the Armenian genocide during World War I, and his father’s historical fiction inspired by the family’s experience settling near Boston, Garabedian composed a series of lustrous chamber jazz settings. He started working on the project the year before his father’s death in 2020, and it’s evolved as a forum for communing with him, sharing writings that he never had the chance to publish.

The illustrious cast includes clarinet maestro Ben Goldberg and vocalist Danielle Wertz, a rising star with a crystalline sound.