Cosa Brava recorded their first album, Ragged Atlas in San Francisco in December 2008, which was released in March 2010. John Kelman in a review at All About Jazz said that the album "transcends time and genre" and is "one of 2010's most auspicious debuts".[6] A second album entitled The Letter was released in March 2012.[7]
Background
Fred Frith's career began as a "rock musician" with Henry Cow in 1968, but has since diversified into a number of different genres, from avant-garde jazz to contemporary classical music. He has written scores for film and dance, and music for orchestras and string quartets. He became Professor of Composition the Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California in 1999. The motivation behind the formation of Cosa Brava arose out of Frith's nostalgia for rock music. He said, "I really miss what you can do with a rock band. I miss developing material through the push and pull of cooperative rehearsals, I miss what happens when you move away from 'the parts' and start formulating things with a collective ear, I miss the single-minded commitment to a group identity."[8]
