(photo by Peter Gannushkin)
Primary Scene: Brooklyn/New York
Josh Sinton, a native of southern new jersey, born in 1971, is a creative musician who specializes in playing the baritone saxophone and bass clarinet. growing up, his musical inspirations were his father’s record collection, his brothers’ record collections and watching his father play stride piano at parties. there wasn’t anyone else playing music so to this day Sinton remains mystified that the music bug stuck at all.
He studied composition at the university of Chicago and improvisation at the AACM in the 1990’s and then proceeded to carve out a niche for himself in Chicago writing and performing music for dance (with Julia Mayer) and theater (at Steppenwolf studio and bailiwick repertory) as well as performing and studying with local musicians such as Fred Anderson, Ken Vandermark, Ari Brown and Cameron Pfiffner. he would leave Chicago during this time for extended backpacking trips around Europe and India and found a lot of useful information for his later work.
Determined to overcome his technical shortcomings, he gave all this up and moved to Boston in 1999 to resume studies at the New England conservatory. he spent five years in Boston and met, played and studied with a variety of folks including Steve Lacy, Ran Blake, Dominique Eade, Jerry Bergonzi, Bob Moses, Jim Hobbs and the either orchestra. despite their encouragement, Sinton was overjoyed when he got to leave Boston in 2004.
Since then, Sinton has lived in Brooklyn, New York. he’s been fortunate enough to be a long-standing member of Darcy James argue’s secret society, the Nate Wooley quintet, the Andrew D’Angelo DNA orchestra and Anthony Braxton’s tricentric orchestra. with these groups he’s traveled to several countries in Europe and south america as well as played many festivals (Moers, Newport, BMW, Bergamo, Tampere Jazz Happening, etc.). Sinton is proud of the collaborators he’s been able to work with (Kirk Knuffke, Tomas Fujiwara, Chad Taylor, Mary Halvorson, Ingrid Laubrock, Jeremiah Cymerman, Josh Roseman, Harris Eisenstadt, Roswell Rudd, James Fei, Denman Maroney, Han-earl Park, Greg Tate, Curtis Hasselbring, Mike Pride, Jon Irabagon) but the list of people he still hopes to play with is vast.
As a long-standing member of the Douglass Street Music Collective, Josh Sinton has hosted hundreds of concerts over the past 7 years Brooklyn. his work has been recognized by Downbeat (critics’ and readers’ poll), Jazz Times (critics’ poll) and El Intruso (international critics’ poll) and has been discussed in the wire, signal to noise, point of departure, the New York Times and the New York City Jazz Record.
Sinton defines himself as a “creative musician” rather than a jazz musician and has done so since 2011. his reasons for this are varied and personal, but some of them are outlined here and here. suffice to say, friendly listeners can label him what they will. Sinton will just continue creating sounds with the goal of wasting nobody’s time.
Currently sinton leads the band ideal bread as well playing regularly with the Nate Wooley Quintet and the Tricentric Orchestra. he is busy writing new music for himself and his collaborators as well as contributing essays to the websites of Darcy James argue, Ethan Iverson’s do the math, destination: out and sound american.
(via jazzbarisax.com)
Sinton, Josh