Paul Szmal: And welcome back to FLX Morning, coming up on 7.53, it's already 72. And joining me now is Drew Azzanaro, he is part of a group called the Far Trio. They are going to be playing at Live at the Vista at Seneca Lake Resorts coming up on Thursday, or coming up tomorrow, today's Thursday, tomorrow's Friday. Drew, I'm getting my days mixed up, how are you?
Drew Azzinaro: I do the same all the time, I'm doing great, thanks for having us on, appreciate it.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, absolutely. Tell me a little bit about the history of this group and how this trio came together.
Drew Azzinaro: Well, we all met when we were going to college at Fredonia, 13, 14 years ago, and you know, we met in a jazz ensemble and really just hit it off. The group didn't start then, we played in different projects throughout the years and it kind of culminated in this, maybe about six years ago, I would say, and we lived in Buffalo for a while together and now we live in different places. Our bass player is out in Brooklyn, Eamon, he sings, and Ethan and I live in the Catskills now, but we are in the Finger Lakes all the time, love being out there, and we're working on our third album right now and just enjoying, trying to spread the music.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, I love the description of your band on your band's website, the bio says, Earthly Fusion and Rock and Soul.
Drew Azzinaro: Yeah, we like to, you know, well again, we're out in the Cape right now, we love nature, we love all of those elements of rustic sound and fusion of all kinds of music, but rock and soul, I think, is kind of the best way to describe what we do.
Paul Szmal: I listened to a couple of tracks from your most recent album, Ordinary Moments, on Spotify and one of the tracks, I think it's the opening track on the album, the first thing that made me think of was the Youngbloods' Get Together, it's got that 60s rock soul feel to it.
Drew Azzinaro: Oh, that's awesome, yeah, we definitely are heavily influenced by the late 60s, early 80s, everything from John Lennon and the Allman Brothers to all the soul stuff like Bill Weathers to Miles Davis and just somehow we got trapped in that sound, but I'm glad that you picked up on that.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, I was listening to other tracks on the album, you just kind of get that, it's got that late 60s vibe feel going on to it, it's good, enjoyable music, I have to say, man.
Drew Azzinaro: Oh, that means a lot, thanks, yeah, you know, we're enjoying trying to, you know, spread the good vibrations and some good messages and keep the flame alive of live music, you know, and what you guys are doing, spreading the word, is such an important part of that, you know, so, again, it's really appreciated.
Paul Szmal: And you guys are constantly gigging, I looked at your tour list and it took up, I had to scroll down twice to read the entire list.
Drew Azzinaro: We've been fortunate, you know, and we do it all ourselves, you know, all the booking, but we're really fortunate that we all want to do this and that there's places that, you know, appreciate the music and, yeah, we've been playing about 150 shows a year for the last two or three years, you know, around New York and the Northeast mainly.
Paul Szmal: And you're going to be coming to the Live at the Vista at Seneca Lake Resorts tomorrow, have you guys played there before?
Drew Azzinaro: This is our first time, we're looking forward to it, we play in the area a lot, but we've heard really great things about this event in particular. You're going to love this place right along the lake with the open air pavilion that is the Vista itself. I think you guys are really going to enjoy the vibe there.
Paul Szmal: We're inspired by the nature and the people, yeah.
Drew Azzinaro: Yeah, absolutely. Tell me a little bit about the new album that you're working on. You've already put two albums out, that was what, back about three years ago?
Paul Szmal: We put one in 2019 out when we were still in Buffalo and then one in 2022, which we recorded, this newest one will be recorded with the same guy, Scott Petito, out in Woodstock, who we were fortunate to work with. He's worked with people like James Taylor and Chick Corea and some really great artists that we admire. It's always kind of mind-blowing to see pictures of them in the same chair as we were in, you know, and things like that. But we have seven new songs, we have many more written, but seven new ones recorded and they're in the phase to be mixed. I think two of them are just about done, they should be out any week now, we're going to put them out one at a time, I think. And I think it's going to be a little bit more on the rock, bluesy side, not just, you know, still in that late 60s vibe, but you'll hear a little bit more of the trying to get that live feel into this one as much as we can.
Drew Azzinaro: Yeah, and there's some jazz undertones to what you do, too. You mentioned that you guys went together in a jazz ensemble, so that music is definitely familiar to you.
Paul Szmal: Oh yeah, we all love jazz. I mean, improvisation is just a huge part of what we do, you know, in the vibe of kind of taking a song, you know, like the great jazz masters did, that we look up to, or even like Bruce Hornsby, you know, that kind of thing, where we take a song and just really, we don't know where it's going to go anytime we play it. And a lot of that comes from the vocabulary and the inspiration of jazz.
Drew Azzinaro: Yeah, it is great stuff to listen to. Why don't we give the website a plug if people want to check out the music before they head out to see it tomorrow night?
Paul Szmal: Oh, that'd be great. Yeah, it's at Fartrio.com. And then we have at Fartrio Music is all of our Instagram, and that's F-A-R, Fartrio.
Drew Azzinaro: Right. So go check these guys out tomorrow night. You are definitely going to not be disappointed. You're going to hear some very cool original music from them as they play Seneca Lake Resorts live at the Vista tomorrow night. And hopefully the weather cooperates for you guys tomorrow evening, and you're going to have a fantastic night out there.
Paul Szmal: Thanks for jumping in and joining us here, Drew.
Drew Azzinaro: Oh, we appreciate so much having us on, and yeah, we look forward to making the music tomorrow there.
Paul Szmal: And Drew Azenaro from the group The Far Trio, again, you can catch them tomorrow night at Seneca Lake Resorts live at the Vista. You can find out more information about the food trucks and everything they have going on there by going to SenecaLakeResorts.com. It's 7.59 on FLX Morning on Finger Lakes Newsradio. Lucas Day will have a local news update following the CBS World News Roundup as FLX Morning continues.
