Jason Robinson works as a saxophonist, improviser, composer, and educator with training in both jazz and experimental idioms. He co-established the Trummerflora Collective in San Diego and launched his own artist-run imprint, Circumvention Music. Although he leads projects centered on creative jazz, he has also contributed as a sideman to West Coast funk ensembles and roots reggae groups, appearing with Cosmologic, Crucial, Groundation, and Cannonball.
His career began in Sonoma County after he earned simultaneous bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and music. There he performed with Ernie Small’s Monday Night Big Band and took lessons from bassist Mel Graves, whom he regards as a formative influence. Graves performed on Robinson’s first release, From the Sun, which appeared in 1998 on the newly founded Circumvention Music. That same year Robinson relocated to San Diego for graduate work at U.C.S.D., where Anthony Davis served among his instructors; the two later collaborated, with Robinson featured on Tania and Davis appearing on two tracks of Tandem.
At that time the city’s experimental community was beginning to take shape. Robinson connected with Marcos Fernandes, Marcelo Radulovich, Hans Fjellestad, and Robert Montoya, and together with additional players they organized the improvising ensemble Trummerflora Collective, whose first album, No Stars Please, was issued in 2001. He also formed the trio Maroja alongside Fernandes and Montoya, projects that constitute his most exploratory work. Concurrently he assembled an avant-jazz saxophone-bass-drums trio featuring Rob Thorsen and Brett Sanders and initiated the jam-jazz quartet Cosmologic, while participating in various reggae, funk, and groove-oriented bands.
Robinson has taught jazz theory at U.C.S.D. since the close of the 1990s. He appears frequently throughout the San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles regions and has performed in Alaska and New York as well. In 2002 he issued the duo collection Tandem on the Trummerflora-affiliated label Accretions.
