Charged Particles: Jazz with a Spark

Charged Particles performing with saxophonist Tod Dickow.

The trio Charged Particles, from the California Bay Area near San Francisco, has been playing funky Latin jazz in Indonesia, the U.K., Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and Italy, and across the U.S., at famed venues including Yoshi’s, Ronnie Scott’s, Birdland, Blues Alley, the Musical Instrument Museum, the Columbus Jazz Festival, the Stanford Jazz Festival, the San Luis Obispo Jazz Festival, the Eureka Springs Jazz Festival, and hundreds of others.

The band recently sold out Ronnie Scott’s (in London) and Birdland (in New York City) with tenor saxophonist Tod Dickow and world-class trumpeter Randy Brecker, playing new arrangements of compositions by the late great jazz saxophonist Michael Brecker on the CD, “Live at the Baked Potato!” (Summit Records). The CD was named among the best 2021 jazz releases in JazzTimes Magazine, Jazzwise Magazine, The San Jose Mercury News, the Jazz Journalists Association, the 16th Annual Jazz Critics Poll, Glide Magazine, Nippertown Magazine, and more publications. In a concert review, Downbeat Magazine called the band “something special” and “inventive, invigorating, mesmerizing, beautiful, virtuosic, and lyrical.” Nippertown Magazine said the band’s performance at the Albany Riverfront Jazz Festival was “often thrilling” and “the peak set of the day.” The Oxford Times said their performance at the Spin Jazz Club was “brilliant.”