Steven Lugerner's SLUGish Ensemble

He’s recorded a lapidary duo project with pianist Fred Hersch, 2015’s Gravitations Vol. II, and delved into the post-bop canon on his Jackie McLean project Jacknife with Larry Willis, the pianist from the classic 1965 Blue Note album. Recently, he’s been focusing on SLUGish Ensemble, a sextet featuring a brilliant cadre of young musicians centering on the Stanford Jazz Workshop, where Lugerner has worked as the faculty and camp director since 2013. A vehicle for his low end work on bass clarinet and baritone saxophone, SLUGish grew out of Lugerner’s years in New York City soaking up the striking orchestrational concepts of various large ensembles, particularly Maria Schneider, John Hollenbeck, and Nico Muhley. Carving out territory adjacent to jazz, the band’s lustrous, multilayered Slow & Steady Records release An Eight Out of Nine seamlessly weaves improvised passages into extended musical forms.