Narrow Margin is the title of a 1952 B-movie noir (see below), and I use film noir as aloosely unifying thread for the group. The music is not based on noir soundtracks however. It is a diverse group of compositions that draw from lyrical jazz, free jazz, bebop, a smattering of rock, cop show themes and the lone cover tune "Taxi Driver" by Bernard Herrmann. Hermann and other film composers of the era were deeply influenced by the late romantic period in European concert music, and in turn his influence can be heard on several of the tracks of Narrow Margin.

I was fortunate enough to be able to enlist some of my favorite improvisors on their respective instruments for the CD because I knew they would bring something different to the proceedings, and their creativity dovetails into, and adds onto, the writing in a beautiful way. In an era when everyone comes out of music school knowing large parts of the jazz vocabulary, it’s important to me to find players who have distinctive individual voices.

The backstory

In the summer of '06, I sprained my left wrist and couldn't play for 10 weeks. Having taken a gig later in September, I started to wonder if I could cover playing a trio after a long layoff. Necessity being the mother of invention, I decided to spread the workload around to some great horn players, and orchestrated for trumpet, tenor sax, and trombone since to my knowledge that combination had only been used one or two (thousand) times before in the history of jazz. Having spent my forced hiatus from the guitar watching many many films noir from the 40's and 50's I decided to borrow the name of the group from a 1952 B-movie noir "The Narrow Margin".

The Second Street Collective represents four generations of jazz artistry - culminating in a musical statement that is as cohesive as it is diverse.

Trumpeter John McNeil is a legendary New York performer and educator, having played with The Horace Silver Quintet, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, and Gerry Mulligan to name a few, as well as writing the book Flexus: Trumpet Calisthenics for the Modern Improvisor.

Dubbed "small man - big sound" (The Monitor, Kampala, Uganda) alto saxophonist Jeremy Udden has given concerts and clinics extensively around Europe, Africa, and the US with the Grammy nominated Either/Orchestra, recorded two records as a leader (one featuring Bob Brookmeyer), and has brought his own band to China, Sweden and around the US. He has also performed with Steve Lacy, Joe Lovano, and Junior Mance.

Bassist Jorge Roeder has toured with Kenny Werner and guitar sensation Julian Lage among many others and is one of the most in-demand young bassists in New York.

Drawing on their collective experience, the quartet is as comfortable performing cool, hard-bop, and swing as it is rock and world rhythms, with a firm grasp on the tradition of Jazz, while making a fresh musical statement.

My Band Foot Foot is a testament of our love for the music of The Shaggs, a late 60's band of sisters that created music unlike any other before or since. Co-led by myself, trombonist JC Sanford and trumpeter John McNeil, MBFF does not try to imititate or make fun of the Shaggs. We instead reconfigure some aspect of the their music and end up making fun of all other forms of music.

This is a diverse band stylistically encompassing, jazz, heavy rock, metal, country, musical theater, chamber music, reggae, gospel, blues, salsa, barbershop quartet.

Our fellow players include bassists Matt Pavolka or Ben Rubin, violinists Sara Caswell or Meg Okura and drummer Ted Poor or Alison Miller.