David “Knife” Fabris
guitarist educator
David Sanford Big Band
The David Sanford Big Band is a 20 piece ensemble of really talented musicians culled from David's past stops in Colorado, Boston, New York and Western Mass.
Formed in 2003 as the Pittsburgh Collective, this group is comprised of top-level jazz, classical and new music virtuosi. Described with such praise as “a very original, innovative jazz orchestra”, “death star magnitude”, “full-throttle wailing from all sections”, “reaches out of the speakers and grabs you by the scruff of your neck”, and “a powerhouse of some of the most incredible musicians and jazz aficionados you have ever or never heard”, the band extends the Third Stream tradition of Ellington, Kenton, Gunther Schuller, George Russell and Charles Mingus, straddling jazz and classical idioms with a plurality and intensity reflective of the 21st century.
Members of the band come from the Meridian Arts Ensemble, the Atlantic Brass Quintet, Brass Roots, the Manhattan Brass, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva, the New Millennium Ensemble, Urban Sun, and the bands of Ran Blake, Hugh Ragin, Gunther Schuller, Fred Hersch, and ICE, as well as leading their own groups for which they compose and arrange.
The newest CD, Prayer For Lester Bowie has been garnering critical acclaim and a following of fans seeking to have their minds blown!
Prayer For Lester Bowie (2021), Greenleaf records
Live at the Knitting Factory (2007), Oxingale records