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Williamson’s drums sound tucked away in a corner, Barr’s guttural saxophone runs thicken the air and seem to bounce off the walls the louder he blows. As a result, the first Lower East Suite EP-the better of the two-feels like a tributary time capsule to the band’s recent formation. The sleepily psychedelic “172 Forsyth St.” is named after the former KNOW-WAVE storefront radio station where Barr concretized and catalyzed the formation of Onyx Collective, and also where many of the Lower East Suite Part One songs were recorded. The first two EPs, Lower East Suite Part One and Part Two, stitch together tracks recorded at a variety of locations across the city.
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Their follow-up, their first music available digitally, is a series of three releases destined for the British label Big Dada, and so far they too have been conduits for the band’s traveling live act. In 2016, teaming with the online radio platform KNOW-WAVE and the streetwear brand Supreme, Onyx Collective released a full-length debut of live recordings called Second Avenue Rundown. Now, a group of musicians that can’t sit still seem to be figuring out what it means to be a recorded band. As a live act especially, Onyx Collective-sometimes as spare as that original trio, but often hovering around a half dozen-has become many things to many scenes. They’ve worked alongside rappers like Wiki and Princess Nokia and lent music to singers Dev Hynes and Nick Hakim. In the time since, the group has plastered themselves across the city as a ubiquitous and modular live jazz band. By 2014, with Williamson, Benitez, and others at his side, Barr founded Onyx Collective as a fluid and open-door ensemble of his own.
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Like the rest of their bandmates, the saxophonist, drummer, and keyboardist came from different New York City high schools, and the York College Blue Notes band was offered to them as a networking platform and artistic incubator-an opportunity for serious, guided jamming. Not long ago, Isaiah Barr met fellow musicians Austin Williamson and Josh Benitez in a jazz band program at York College in Jamaica, Queens.