Stay up to date on upcoming performances, new creative endeavors, and interesting ideas.
Jay Sanders
Composer, Musician, Producer
Jay Sanders is a guitarist, bassist, composer, producer, and bandleader based in Asheville, N.C. An avid musical explorer with an insatiably curious mind, his music seamlessly fuses jazz, rock, blues, metal, and African influences with years of improvisational study. His compositions range from structured thematic works and soulful grooves to Americana reflections, global soundscapes, and experimental improvisations.
With more than two dozen recordings and performances across 47 U.S. states and six countries, Jay is best known as the longtime bassist for Acoustic Syndicate, widely considered a progenitor of the jam and jamgrass scenes. The North Carolina-bred band has performed at major festivals including Bonnaroo and Farm Aid over their 25-year career. Jay also served as bassist for Americana legends Donna the Buffalo from 2007-2010 and co-leads the avant-garde E.Normus Trio, whose debut Love & Barbiturates earned critical acclaim for its fusion of "jazz-rock, free-jazz and progressive metal-jazz."
His solo debut,
Evanescent,
released July 12, 2024, showcases his compositional range with an eight-person ensemble featuring saxophone, fiddle, and VO-96 synth. German website eR eM praised the album's "astonishing range of styles and sounds," calling it a "wonderful debut." His first symphonic work, "Sinfonietta Helene," will premiere with the Blue Ridge Orchestra in September 2025.
Jay's commitment to fostering musical community includes organizing the inaugural Asheville Improvisational Music Festival and serving on the board of URSA Asheville, a non-profit dedicated to igniting musical innovation. He co-owns the award-winning cocktail bar
Little Jumbo,
where he leads a quartet every Tuesday night and curates weekly jazz performances, building a "Live at Little Jumbo" recording series for release in 2025 and beyond.
Throughout his career, Sanders has performed with Ornette Coleman, Béla Fleck, Fred Wesley, Sam Bush, Bernie Worrell, Tim Reynolds, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux and many other celebrated musicians, while studying with jazz educators including Reggie Wooten, Samurai Celestial, Jeff Sipe, and Jerry Coker.
This symphony, my first large-scale orchestral composition,
was born out of a need to process and to give back after Hurricane Helene.
As a musician, as an artist of time and emotion, I sat at the piano, searching for
something tangible amidst the intangible. The primary theme for the second movement emerged
fully formed—a melody that carried the weight of grief, the push and pull of hope and despair,
the quiet acceptance of what had been lost.
This symphony is shaped by the collective spirit of Asheville.
It is an offering, a space for reflection, and above all, an invitation to feel.
This debut release that skirts the boundaries of jazz-rock, free-jazz and progressive
metal-jazz. The jazz and improvisational elements accentuate most of these works, fueled by
adrenaline rushes amid the broad arsenal.
It's all been done before in various ways, shapes and forms, but this band integrates numerous genre-based
inferences into its repertoire. With asymmetrical doses of swing, rock, and Sanders' fuzzed-out psycho guitar
licks, the music generates remembrances of New York City's vibrant downtown scene, at times drawing
comparisons to John Zorn's Naked City ensemble... the band counterbalances a feeding frenzy with softly
woven innocence, and is a consistent paradigm throughout the program. Hence, it doesn't work within one
particular formula, yet maintains a distinct group-centric persona.
Jay's first solo record is a musing on impermanence. Featuring seven original compositions and a tone poem dedicated to the Voyager spacecraft, *Evanescent* combines stylistic variations that explore the entirety of Jay's interests and influences into a smooth and satisfying story arc.
Evanescent
features many of the celebrated musicians from Asheville's music scene, including his longtime collaborators Steve Alford, Justin Ray, Jacob Rodriguez, Zack Page, Evan Martin, and Tyler Housholder. Globetrotting fiddle phenom Casey Driessen is also featured.
Released July 12, 2024, the album received international acclaim. German website eR eM praised the release, writing: "With an eight-person line-up and an instrumentation that includes saxes, bass, drums, percussion and of course guitars, as well as a fiddle and a VO-96 synth, nine tracks with an enormous range were created...Jay Sanders and his ensemble present an astonishing range of styles and sounds. Not something you can just listen to casually, the thing requires attention—but it's worth it. Wonderful debut, which will hopefully be followed by many more examples of Jay Sanders' skills."
"[...] With an eight-person line-up and an instrumentation that includes saxes, bass, drums, percussion and of course guitars,
as well as a fiddle and a VO-96 synth, nine tracks with an enormous range were created - from moderately jazzy ("Woosel's Blues"),
relaxed grooving ("Morningtide") to metallic ("Krekel") and absolutely free ("Flyswatter"), Jay Sanders and his ensemble present an
astonishing range of styles and sounds. Not something you can just listen to casually, the thing requires attention - but it's worth it.
Wonderful debut, which will hopefully be followed by many more examples of Jay Sanders' skills."
~ eR eM
His sonically adventurous quartet
— featuring
Will Boyd,
Zack Page, and
Alan Hall
—
performs his original music every Tuesday at
Little Jumbo.
Current Projects
Performing live every Tuesday at
Little Jumbo
in Asheville, NC, Sanders, Boyd, Page, and Hall serve as an ongoing canvas of like-minded sonic adventurers. Their focus on original compositions oscillates between through-composed musical themes, groove-based soul explorations, traditional jazz-influenced pieces, Americana-inspired peaceful melodicism, world music influences, free jazz adventures, and occasional forays into cacophonous noise music—simultaneously fusing jazz, rock, blues, metal, and African influences with years of improvisational study and training.
Jay is joined by multi-reed instrumentalist, composer, and educator Will Boyd, widly celebrated acclaimed bassist Zack Page,
and exceptional drummer and composer Alan Hall.
Jay Sanders
- Guitar, ERAE Touch, Synthesizer, and Effects
Will Boyd
- Reeds, Flute, EWI, and Effects
Zack Page
- Bass and Effects
Alan Hall
- Drums and Percussion
The Snake Oil Medicine Show
At once a rolling art party, world-music fusion band, and persistent meditation on the nature
of causal existentialism, there is nothing quite like the Snake Oil Medicine Show. They seem to singularly
personify the unclassifiable ethos of the genre-jumping conjunto, with lyrics focusing on love and unity in
these troubled times. The Snake Oil Medicine Show has been a festival favorite for nearly 30 years.
It’s legally insane party music for the whole family!
“Jay is a brilliant and innovative musician. He’s there to make whatever style of music he’s playing take
priority – a chameleon without compromise and a super talent. I’d have him on any session!”
~ Grammy Award Winning Producer Stewart Lerman
History
Acoustic Syndicate
Acoustic Syndicate — which has for decades been setting the pace for a style of music that
fuses southern roots music, bluegrass, rock and roll and a healthy dose of improvisation in an
approach that now permeates the American music scene...
Hailed as a progenitor of and inspiration to generations of jam and jamgrass bands, the group
has taken its distinctive, North Carolina-bred sound across the country more times than any of its
members can recall. Comprised of three cousins — Steve “Big Daddy” McMurry on guitar and lead vocals,
along with brothers Bryon McMurry (banjo, guitar, vocals) and Fitz McMurry (drums, vocals) —
and longtime bassist Jay Sanders, Acoustic Syndicate’s music has grown organically, earning them a
loyal following and appearances at memorable events such as Bonnaroo and Farm Aid. Says Paul Kerr of
JamBase, “Their modern take on traditional bluegrass and rock values culminates in a glimmering,
driving sound rich with acoustic textures and glowing vocals.”
Timely themes emerge throughout [their final record, All In Time], describing the ebb and flow of life
with messages of recognizing today’s struggles but keeping a hopeful eye on what could be.
Bryon’s “Simple Dream” — the third single released from the album — is one of the songs that captures this idea.
“It’s somewhat of a plea for humanity, broken down to be as straightforward of a message as can be: Love.
Love is better than hate,” says Bryon. “The music originally was much slower, written for a New Orleans project
with tuba and banjo and other horns that is still in its infancy. The message, though, is simple, given the past
few years of turmoil in this country and globally. The song is a plea for us to take a look at ourselves and
those around us and try to bridge the gaps. I'm sure I’m naive in my thinking,” he concludes, “but it’s worth a try.”
The title track offers some more reflection, and Steve calls it one of the strongest songs to date.
“The words are just my account of needing to catch my breath. I have many character flaws. One of the worst is
my perpetual propensity to commit myself to absolutely more than I can do on a daily basis. The job, the band,
the farm, and until recently, aging parents… all of it,” says Steve. “Many are the days that I forget to just pause,
look around, breathe the air, appreciate my surroundings, have gratitude, recognize the love that I have in my
life and try to turn down the volume of living for a moment. ‘All In Time’ is also a reflective appreciation for
something my dad, Joe, would say when the times of the world become frightening, chaotic and without direction,
like they are now: ‘When things become uncertain like this…when the world seems like it’s out of control and we can’t
help but be scared and anxious about the state of things…no matter how bad it gets, unless there is something we
can do about it, we just have to have faith, be patient, keep on doing the best that we can…and trust that people
will eventually do the right thing in the end.’”
As a whole, Acoustic Syndicate’s All In Time offers a rich musical portrait of long-time masters replanting their
indie-roots fusion flag on the rapidly re-emerging musical terrain they helped to establish and influence over 25 years ago.
