Detroit area avant jazz ensemble Blue Dog took their name from Thelonius Monk's Blue Monk and Led Zeppelin's Black Dog. Keyboardist Mick Dobday and guitarist Erik Gustafson formed the group after expressing mutual dissatisfaction with the direction of big-band rehearsals that formed part of their Wayne State University Music School studies. Dobday and Gustafson felt kinship not only with the Motor City's jazz tradition but also with its soul, pop, and rock music history -- from the Temptations and Funkadelic to the Stooges. Blue Dog, also featuring drummer Alex Trajano, saxophonist Michael Graye, and bassist Jaribu Shahid, thus became a vehicle for exploration of divergent strains of popular music, setting off different styles and highlighting their contrasts in often bold relief. Blue Dog's channel-surfing approach invited comparison to John Zorn's Naked City and attracted the attention of Knitting Factory Records label head Michael Dorf, who released the band's first CD, What Is Anything, in 1994. Touching on everything from Henry Mancini to the MC5, What Is Anything received generally favorable reviews, and Dorf sent the group touring through Europe in the mid-'90s.

However, Knitting Factory lost interest in marketing and supporting Blue Dog, and the group performed only sporadically in the Detroit area during the remainder of the decade. Erik Gustafson drifted off to join the first incarnation of composer/guitarist Bill Brovold's instrumental art rock band Larval, appearing on that group's first two CDs. In addition, bassist Shahid was becoming increasingly unavailable, moving to New York City for session work and joining Roscoe Mitchell's Note Factory ensemble. However, Blue Dog was not ready to fade away, and all the original members assembled to record Lurch, a second CD of Dobday compositions and deconstructions released on the band's own Cobalt 61 Records label in 1999. As the new century began, Erik Gustafson left Larval but remained in Blue Dog. For a time, the group began investigating new sound possibilities arising from a quartet lineup without a bassist. Live gigs in southeastern Michigan continued, including a film score project presented at Detroit's Gold Dollar Bar, but the group eventually faded from the scene as its members pursued different individual and collaborative interests. ~ Dave Lynch, Rovi