Aaron, with his warm-sounding sax-playing, is the focal point of the group. In addition to having appeared at venues such as Lincoln Center, the Knitting Factory and the Bitter End, the Toronto native, who now resides in Ozone Park, has recorded seven albums since 1995. But jazz wasn’t always on Aaron’s trajectory. He grew up listening to rock ‘n’ roll and R&B.
   “It wasn’t until I hit my 20s that I started listening to more jazz,” Aaron said. “Now I love jazz — post-bop and a lot of 50s and 60s — but I didn’t grow up listening to it from a young age. When I started composing I kind of felt it was more jazz than anything else.”
   Before arriving in New York, Aaron ran a music store in Toronto. He said that he had performed music just for fun and jammed with blues and rock groups. Once he settled in the Big Apple, he came across an advertisement in The Village Voice in which Roy Nathanson, the saxophonist and leader of the group the Jazz Passengers, was offering music lessons.
   “I started taking lessons from him and he became my mentor,” Aaron said. “I worked with the Jazz Passengers, and some of the Jazz Passengers have played in my band. That all happened as soon as I got here. I was like ‘I don’t know if I’m gonna stay.’ Fifteen years later I’m still here.”
   Aaron formed his group Short Memory, which has included over the years various players with Katzman, Frederick and drummer Danny Borg making up the band’s current configuration.
   “Right now we’re at a point,” Aaron said about his band, “where I’m with friends and people who are really committed to it and are really excited about it.”
   In addition to containing his music, some of Aaron’s albums also sport quirky titles such as “Executive Food Fight” and “Cynical Rat Bastard,” the latter inspired by his now-wife — who teaches music at a Queens public school. “One of the first things she said to me was she liked the fact that I was a cynical rat bastard,” he recalled.
   So far, one of the career highlights for Aaron was playing at the jazz venue Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem. “That’s where bebop was born,” he said. “Everybody played there. It’s just that amazing, the history: it’s the same bar, the same room, the same mural behind the stage. It’s very intimidating.”
   Short Memory appears at Le Grand Dakar Restaurant, 285 Grand Avenue, Brooklyn, for its jazz brunch on the first Sunday of every month, from 1 to 4 p.m. For more information on David Aaron and Short Memory, visit shortmemory.org.