Solo digibone

Digibone is my live trombone and computer performance environment, an animistic world of live electronics where the viscoelastic qualities of the slide trombone invoke shifting digital sprites and topographies.  In addition to live processing/sampling and algorithmic composition, I use a custom-designed practice mute that isolates the electronically processed sounds, to turn the trombone into a kind of digital audio controller. Electronics are part of all my trio albums since 2008, and my first solo digibone album, Digibone Forest, was released in 2019 by Accretions.

Sample track: The Usual Suspects:

Sample track: Mensural Refractions:


Press quotes

“Fantastically subtle, imaginative extensions of his trombone’s sound – feathery rufflings, pixelized halos, teasing curlicues and rasps…”
Signal To Noise, Nate Dorward

“George Lewis has played slide trombone and electronics with equal facility, and his former student Michael Dessen makes the two instruments work as one… Dessen switches between voluptuous lyricism and digitally distorted splatter, and his shifts between those poles never feel forced or arbitrary.”
Downbeat, Bill Meyer

“A slide-trombone virtuoso and computer musician of the highest order.”
All About Jazz, Robert Bush