# CD review: Joe Fonda – From The Source – 2024: Video, CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2024/05/09/cd-review-joe-fonda-from-the-source-2024-video-cd-cover/
- Published: 2024-05-09T00:04:50+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Joe Fonda is perhaps best known as Anthony Braxton’s bassist of choice for much
of the ’90s, but also embarked on a rewarding outside career during the latter half
of the decade, most notably as co-leader of the Fonda-Stevens Group. **

A native of the small upstate New York town of Amsterdam, Fonda came from musical
stock; his parents met while performing together in a jazz orchestra. Fonda grew
up interested in blues-rock and at first took guitar lessons, but switched to electric
bass because none of his bandmates wanted to play it.

He wound up studying bass at Berklee during the early ’70s, where he delved into
jazz — particularly the avant-garde wing — and started playing acoustic upright.
Fonda recorded his first album as a leader, Looking for the Lake, in 1976 after 
leaving Berklee.

He spent most of the early to mid-’80s playing around the New Haven, CT scene, and
also performed with a dance company (both as bassist and dancer). His most notable
gig of the period, though, was with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, whose global aesthetic
helped shape Fonda’s own musical philosophy; they recorded together on 1983’s Procession
of the Great Ancestry.

Fonda moved to New York City in the late ’80s, and landed his highest-profile gig
to date when he joined up with Anthony Braxton in 1994. Fonda was involved with 
most of Braxton’s projects over the next five years, from large groups like the 
Tri-Centric Orchestra to the 1995 duet album Ten Compositions on Konnex; thanks 
to this association, he toured the world and built a stellar reputation among devotees
of avant-garde jazz.

In partnership with pianist Michael Jefry Stevens, Fonda also performed on the side
with his best-known venture as a leader, the acclaimed Fonda-Stevens Group (usually
a quartet or quintet). This venture recorded for the Music & Arts (1996’s The Wish,
1997’s Parallel Lines) and Leo (1997’s Evolution, 2000’s Live at the Bunker) labels.

Fonda also created an interdisciplinary variation on that group, which included 
tap dancer Brenda Bufolino and vocalist/body healer Vicki Dodd as equal members;
together this outfit recorded From the Source for Konnex in 1998, and it was acclaimed
as Fonda’s most groundbreaking effort. Fonda also devoted time to other projects:
the Joe Fonda Quintet (which recorded 1999’s Full Circle Suite for CIMP), the entirely
solo album When It’s Time (1999, Jazzhalo), and a duo with Chinese guzheng player
Xu Fengxia (2000’s Distance for Leo).

In 2002, Fonda reconvened his From the Source band for a second go-round, The Healing.

1. Something From The Past 13:48
 2. High Tech #1 12:49 3. From The Source 12:26
4. My Song 9:23 5. An Internal Look 5:51 6. No One There At All 7:40

**Vickie Dodd – vocals**
 **Anthony Braxton – alto saxophone, sopranino, F saxophone,
clarinet, contrabass clarinet, flute** **Herb Robertson – trumpet, pocket trumpet****
Joe Fonda – double bass** **Brenda Bufalino – tap dance, narration (1), vocals (
6)** **Grisha Alexiev – percussion**

![From The Source - Jazz Messengers](https://i0.wp.com/www.jazzmessengers.com/73181/
from-the-source.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

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