AJ Bascom

A.J. Bascom was raised in a small town in rural NH. He always dreamed of playing the saxophone, but his family could not afford one when students were allowed to join band in fourth grade. His mother instead offered him the clarinet that she had played in elementary school that had endured decades of neglect in his grandmother’s basement. The keys stuck, screws and springs were rusted or missing, and the bell had a penchant of dropping to the floor at any attempt to blow a note in the lowest register. Worst of all was the stale, musty odor that diffused into the air with remarkable efficiency as the clarinet was played for the first time in decades.

After a several weeks of practice, however, the squeaks and blurts began to transform into music. Bascom seized every practice opportunity – in the kitchen before dinner, in the car on the way to basketball games, duets with the babysitter at home, and anywhere else people could tolerate the squeals of a blooming clarinetist. Meanwhile, he did odd jobs around the neighborhood in order to earn money to buy a saxophone. Over the course of several months, he finally saved over $200 - enough to buy a used alto saxophone with the help of his parents. Shortly thereafter, he studied jazz and improvisation on the saxophone, following in the footsteps of John Coltrane and Charlie Parker.

During the summer of 2000, Bascom produced his first album, "The Tail That Wags the Dog," on his home computer playing the drums, bass, guitars, saxophones, keys, and singing. The amateurish album was not intended for release, but he decided to upload its songs to Mp3.com on the recommendation of a family friend. To his surprise and delight, people started listening. Bascom’s album became Mp3.com's #1 selling CD in New Hampshire during July and August of 2000, and his website had over eight thousand plays in two months. He began to receive fan mail and invitations from club and restaurant owners from all over the world. He continued to write and record in high school with Jillian Bennett, members of X-Guru, and gigged regularly around the Northeast.

A recent graduate of Dartmouth College who specialized in psychological and brain sciences, Bascom also studied music in London with professors from the Royal Academy of Music. In college, Bascom performed solo acoustic concerts at a variety of venues in the Upper Valley and fronted the funk/rock group Jabel’s Tea. Additionally, Bascom toured North America and Europe with the award-winning Dartmouth Aires, winning CASA’s album of the year in 2003 and 2005. He spent his last year at Dartmouth as a Senior Fellow, focusing his research on the evolutionary basis of the faculty of music and lectured on the effects of the conglomeration of media companies on popular music and culture.

Bascom currently works and gigs in Washington D.C. to promote his recently released album, Notes from Berlin.