A few words from Vinnie Sperrazza: This is both my and Matt Blostein’s first album as a leader, and for us it represents both an artistic arrival and a starting place. As an arrival, it is the result of three years of study, experimentation, and, hopefully, growth as musicians and people. And it’s also a starting place, a beginning, as we look forward to developing the music further still. Matt and I began our partnership in the fall of 2003, when we booked a long weekend of shows in the Greater New York area. On that trip, and subsequent other trips, we discovered a camaraderie, an empathy, shared goals and common tastes, which eventually became a process of creation (the writing of the music, assembling the bands), and discovery (of the feeling we wanted our music to have, of the place in ourselves where the music comes from). After many gigs, several brief tours, rehearsals, writing sessions, and the help of some of the best people an...