Channel Collective
Sprung from the Philadelphia jazz scene, Channel Collective is a creative project anchored by saxophone and woodwind specialist Jon Thompson and drummer Justin Leigh. It is a freely morphing lineup of musicians with a vision of capturing the beauty of the unexpected.
Thompson and Leigh are joined by accomplished partners, bassist Michael Taylor, guitarist Greg Snyder and multi-instrumentalist Dion Paci. Their inaugural EP, Tales in Real Time, showcases the group’s instrumental prowess and rare musical chemistry.
Each member has a deep pedigree with more projects than we can list here. (See their individual sites, below.) Thompson and Taylor share roots as original members of Edge City Collective, and contributed to ECC’s three acclaimed albums. Together, Channel channels six decades of jazz history in a spirit of soulful exploration developed, in part, through a series of open-ended recording sessions that started as the dust of the pandemic began to clear. Zack Spangler engineered many of these sessions.
Hear Tales in Real Time on Bandcamp.
The same outfit released an extended single, “Space Traffic,” under the moniker Dichotomous as part of the Right Brain Records compilation album Xtempore 3 (long songs).
“Channel Collective... captures the essence of spontaneous musical expression. This type of freeform improvisation is a testament to the musicians’ skill and their ability to create a captivating auditory experience.”
