Biography

Packaged as a CDR-issue, Drawn Straws, by improvisational, electric jazz band The Strato Ensemble, was just recently released on Fateless Music. This official CDR compiles the bands best sessions, as well as some live performances of a salvaged fidelity. The Strato Ensemble can be categorized as ambient jazz (free jazz, for those who prefer the term in all non-purist arenas).

In the fall of 2003, Dean De Benedictis (Surface) called up his fellow recording artists, Giuseppe Patane (Maata Haari), Andrea "Jako" Giacomini (Socadia), and Takeshi Nishimoto (I'm Not A Gun) to start a project that would keep their chops up, while at the same time keep their musical roots intact. The result was an LA-based improvisational jazz ensemble with an alternative/progressive sound tenuously campared to that of Tortoise, Weather Report, and ECM jazz artists from the 70's and 80's. Fateless Recordings has now compiled the ensemble's best jam sessions as a CDR release for 2007 called Drawn Straws.