MIKE DANA: FARTHER (STILL)
(August 26, 2026)
In the music world here in our valley, success stories often have a bit of a family feel. Relationships send tendrils in every direction, reaching far afield and then, as often as not, circling right back in.
The local jazz scene is very much this way, and one of its legendary artists, guitarist/composer Mike Dana, has played an outsized role in sustaining this custom of cross-pollination. Dana’s new album, Farther (Still), is coming out on September 18, and it’s full of valley-world/world-valley connections.
The album’s title piece, “Farther (Still),” is an example of this kind of interconnectedness. The piece is dedicated to Dana’s good friend Paul Shaghoian, who died unexpectedly in 2004 and is still remembered as a seminal figure in the local jazz scene. Dana explains, “Paul was a very boisterous guy. One of his favorite sayings was ‘Don’t go there!’, which sometimes got shortened to simply ‘there.’ My piece ‘Farther (Still)’ is dedicated to Paul’s memory. He went farther than ‘there,’ and his influence is still felt by his former students (and now, their students.)” Soloing on that track of the album is New York saxophonist Tim Ries, who had gone to college with Paul Shaghoian and was part of a close-knit group of musician-friends whose influence is still felt today. Ries' part in this piece—and thus on this album—was a given.
It is one of Mike Dana’s enduring legacies that our local jazz family is so vitally linked to the non-local jazz world. During his years—1990 through 2018—as Director of Jazz Studies at Fresno City College, Dana brought in a who’s-who of jazz stars to teach students directly and to perform as guest soloists with student ensembles.
At one point in his first year at City College, Dana was made aware of a small pot of money that was his to use for bringing in a guest artist. “Innocence of ignorance,” Dana says now, “or the reverse. Anyway, I plowed ahead.” His first invitee was saxophonist Ernie Watts, who was hot-hot-hot at the time—had played with Frank Zappa, had toured with the Rolling Stones (check out his bio on the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s website). Watts immediately agreed to come to Fresno, where he gave workshops and awed the students with his playing and teaching and generally had a great time. After that, Dana was on a roll, bringing in guest artists every year. He pulled in big names of all kinds, among them saxophonists like Bob Mintzer, Eric Marienthal, and Tim Ries, and trumpeters like Wayne Bergeron and Ingrid Jensen. And yes. That is correct. All of those players are featured on Dana’s new album, Farther (Still).
Mike Dana
Mike Dana
That’s the beauty of the family relationship. And the beauty of the kind of musical gift Mike Dana has been offering this community for decades.
Dana says that sometimes people here forget “all the good stuff” we have here in Fresno. Outsiders are more likely to see it. People from all over the country, he says, comment on our vibrant jazz scene. They are impressed by what we’ve got going on here, and aware of the abundance of musical talent we can lay claim to. And it’s not just Fresno. There’s a “vein of gold” in Kingsburg, Dana points out, mentioning “the Shaghoian family, the Hamadas, the Yokotas, the Engstroms.” Point made!
Asked about his creative process, Dana says, “I don’t have a routine. I don’t, like, make a pot of coffee, turn around three times, throw salt over my left shoulder.” But he does favor noodling. Explaining how he came to write the second number on the album, “Elysium Shore,” Dana says, “I’m not a very good pianist. But I was sitting at the piano, just noodling, and I played a G, an A, a D. That [interval of a] second, then the fifth above the root. And it was just—transparent.” He continues, “the whole piece kind of sprouted from that nugget of three notes.”
The person who had commissioned “Elysium Shore” wanted a trumpet solo. “So when I was writing,” Dana says, “I was hearing Ingrid [Jensen] play it in my mind.”
And wouldn’t you know it. There is the amazing Ingrid Jensen herself, playing the heck out of that solo on Dana’s album. Because of course she is. It’s that magic of relationships at work once again.
Back to the magic of the creative process: “There’s a piece on the album called ‘Just a Phase,’” Dana says. With that piece he wanted to try something different, in terms of pattern. “I’m not a mathematical composer,” he says. “I have to feel it. I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true.”
Still, he wanted to try something kind of mathematically daring. He created a typical eight-bar pattern but used a string of only seven bass notes, so that each eight-bar phrase came up one short, with the result that the seven-note pattern keeps shifting across the eight-bar phrase. “Each eight-bar phrase starts with the next of the seven notes until you are back around to the first one again.”
Can you hear it, when you listen to this track? Want to take the dare?
Like the seven-note bass line, connections in this album go around and come around to create a thing of beauty that is both a direct and an indirect product of our endlessly productive valley.
Thanks to Mike Dana for his latest contribution to the wealth!
Mike Dana’s new album, Farther (Still), is on its way!
Release date is September 18, 2026. You can pre-order your copy here.
Read an over-the-top rave review here.
