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Alex Hand

Alex Hand is a premier guitarist on the Texas scene, regularly performing with jazz, Celtic traditional, classic rock and gypsy swing groups. He graduated from the University of North Texas jazz performance program with a masters in 2021 and continues to perform and teach music in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He studied traditional Balkan music in Bulgaria and Turkey in 2015 and released two self-produced albums of that music with San Francisco jazz players. Hand’s third album is incoming, featuring five original tunes and one wild, spooky take on the classic American song, “St. James Infirmary.” As a composer, he blends jazz improvisation and harmony with two decades of experience with various European folk styles and his love for baroque and romantic-era composers like Couperin, Debussy and Chopin. Alex debuted on television as an on-screen guitarist and on the recorded soundtrack to 1883, the prequel to the Yellowstone series in 2021.

Chris Trinidad: Chris Trinidad's Changing Tides

Read "Chris Trinidad's Changing Tides" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
April 6, 2022

During the course of 2021's lockdowns and distancing, music educator and bassist Chris Trinidad began to wonder if technology was bringing people together or keeping people apart. During these reflections, he reengaged with music he had written years earlier, for a release he titled Certain Times (Iridium, 2014). “The compositions on that album were written in a span of seven days in the midwinter month of December 2013," Trinidad notes on Changing Tides. “During the liturgical season of Advent, the ...

Album Review

Chris Trinidad: Chris Trinidad's Changing Tides

Read "Chris Trinidad's Changing Tides" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
December 29, 2021

Bassist and composer Chris Trinidad released the quartet album Chris Trinidad's Certain Times (Iridium Records, 2015) five years after relocating from Vancouver to the San Francisco Bay area. The compositions were constructed from an assortment of sketches, built on grooves and simple harmonies to give the soloists freedom. For Chris Trinidad Y Con Todo (Iridium Records, 2019) he commissioned pianist Christian Tumalan of the Pacific Mambo Orchestra to arrange Latin jazz versions of songs from his Common Themes album series. ...