Fonda/Stevens Group
The members...
Bassist Joe Fonda has performed with his own ensembles throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. He has collaborated Archie Shepp, Ken McIntyre, Lou Donaldson, Bill and Kenny Barron, Leo Smith, Perry Robinson, Dave Douglas, Curtis Fuller, Bill Dixon, Han Bennink, Bobby Naughton, Xu Fengia, Randy Weston, Gebhard Ullmann, Carla Bley, Carlo Zingaro, Barry Altschul, Billy Bang and many others. Fonda was the bassist with Anthony Braxton from 1984 through 1999. His current projects include the “Dreamstruck” trio featuring Marilyn Crispell and Harvey Sorgen, his collaboration with pianist Satoko Fujji, The New Origins Trio with Christopher Roche, The Eastern Boundary Quartet, the Michael Musillami Trio and the Nu Band.
Master Drummer Harvey Sorgen is the original drummer with the Fonda/Stevens Group, which was formed in 1997. Harvey is comfortable in any musical situation and has worked with some of the finest musicians in the world including:
Hot Tuna, Ahmad Jamal, Michelle Shocked, Paul Simon, Dewey Redman, Dave Douglas, D Mark Feldman, Karl Berger, Joe Mcphee, Julius Hemphill , Connie Bauer, Pete Levin, John Lindberg, Zakir Hussain, Wadada Leo Smith, Cameron Brown, Steve Swell, Neil Rolnick, Anthony Braxton, Carter Jefferson, John Stubblefield, Bruce Hornsby, Jay Anderson, Derrick Trucks, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath, Roswell Rudd, Phil Lesh, David Torn, Levon Helm, Bill Frisell, Herb Robertson, Carlos Santana, Art Lande, Bob Weir, Greg Allman, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Samuels, Garth Hudson, amongst many, many others.
Pianist Michael Jefry Stevens has released over 100 CDs featuring his own music and has performed and recorded extensively with many of the top names in Jazz, including Dave Liebman, Oliver Lake, Dave Douglas, Leo Smith, Matt Wilson, Han Bennink, Mark Feldman, Steve Wilson, Walt Weiskopf, Valerie Ponomarev, Cecil Bridgewater, Jeanne Lee, Dakota Staton, Charles Moffett Sr., George Schuller, Dame Evelyn Glennie, and many others. In 2021 he received a $10,000 Doris Duke Foundation Performing Artist Recovery Fund Grant administered by the New York Community Trust Fund and grants from the North Carolina Arts Council and Buncombe County’s Mountain Bizworks. He received his Master of Arts degree in Jazz Performance from Queens College (CCNY).
Dubbed “one of the great and often under-appreciated jazz groups of the modern era” by the All Music Guide, and “arguably one of the finest and hardest working modern jazz outfits in the business” by All About Jazz, the Fonda/Stevens Group has consistently toured and recorded to critical acclaim for over three decades, performing numerous European tours, radio broadcasts and festival appearances. Together for more than thirty years, the core rhythm section team of Michael Jefry Stevens, Joe Fonda, and Harvey Sorgen in collaboration with Herb Robertson on trumpet have been featured performers at numerous venues throughout Europe and North America.
The Fonda/Stevens Group grew out of a series of musical relationships that Joe Fonda and Michael Jefry Stevens engaged in beginning in 1984 in New York City. Our first musical liaison began with our mutual association performing with Mark Whitecage in various musical ensembles culminating in performing with his “Liquid Time” Quintet in the late 1980’s and included Dave Douglas, Gerry Hemingway, Mike Sarin, Peter LeMaitre and probably some other musicians on and off during the course of probably 5 years. Associations from that band helped to form our next major musical project which was the Mosaic Sextet (1988 – 1990).
That Sextet included Michael Rabinowitz, Joe Fonda, Michael Jefry Stevens, Dave Douglas, Mark Feldman and Harvey Sorgen on drums. The group disbanded in 1990 and Joe and I decided to start the Fonda/Stevens Group. The players we chose were Mark Whitecage, Herb Robertson and Harvey Sorgen. This probably happened in 1991, which means that the band has been together now for 33 years. Although the band was originally a quintet it became a quartet without Mark around 1999/2000.
The Quartet has released fourteen CD’s over the course of thirty plus years as a touring ensemble. The ensemble has been dormant since “Covid”. However, the group is currently reforming and is planning a European tour in the Fall of 2026.
Fonda/Stevens videos
“These days, there are few modern jazz groups which can seamlessly merge elements of free improvisation with main- stream and post-bop stylizations, while still maintaining a signature group sound. The Fonda/Stevens Group is partly about the sum of its parts, where the respective musicians emerge as stylists by honing a group-based methodology that stand on its own”.
– All About Jazz, Glenn Astarita
CD Releases...
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