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	Podcast:		Jazz Fest Minutes
	Episode:		Jazz Fest Minutes: Saxophonist And Astral Project Founder Tony Dagradi
	Category:		Government & Organizations
	Duration:
	Publish Date:		2013-04-29 13:44:13
	Description:		Saxophonist and Astral Project founder Tony Dagradi grew up in Summit, New Jersey. By high school he knew what he wanted to do: play jazz. “It was almost as if I didn’t have a choice,” he says. “I didn’t think about, well, how much money am I going to make or how do I get a gig. I was just — all I wanted to do was play.” After a couple of years at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, Dagradi entered an intense period of jazz rehearsal and listening. “That was it for me. When I started listening to Coltrane I couldn’t listen to anybody else. So, I mean, I really just listened to him pretty nonstop for a couple of years. And I would veer off and listen to other saxophonists, you know, Sonny and Dexter and Charlie Parker and everybody else, but nobody hit me like Coltrane did,” he says. “A lot of what I do as a saxophonist comes out of that influence.” Another big Boston influence on Dagradi was New Orleans native trumpeter and bandleader Stanton Davis. “He was actually probably the
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