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Javier Red: Life & Umbrella
by Mike Jurkovic
The secret behind Life & Umbrella is that Chicago-based, Mexican-born pianist/composer Javier Red is a studied composer who puts a great deal of thought into the music he presents, both to his peers and to the world. But that music never feels calculated like an equation with an obvious answer. Just the exact opposite. So it is with wiry, creative glee that Red and his Imagery Converter--drummer Gustavo Cortiñas, bassist Ben Dillinger and saxophonist Jake Wark--double down on their bold ...
read moreJavier Red's Imagery Converter: Life & Umbrella
by Hrayr Attarian
Chicago pianist Javier Red and his quartet, Imagery Converter, follow their stimulating debut Ephemeral Certainties (Delmark, 2019) with the equally superb Life & Umbrella. Red dedicates the current release to spreading love and understanding for individuals with autism. The dozen originals which comprise it do not have traditional starting and ending heads, as concepts flow from one to the other. This gives the album its uniqueness and contributes to its thematic unity. The angular Brain Check" starts off ...
read moreJavier Red's Imagery Converter: Ephemeral Certainties
by Troy Dostert
Pianist Javier Red hails from Mexico, but since 2015 he's been part of the ever-dynamic Chicago jazz scene, enabling him to team up with three other Windy City-based colleagues on Ephemeral Certainties, the debut disc from a band he calls Imagery Converter. With a shared commitment to finding purpose through diverse melodic fragments and disparate rhythmic figures, the group plays with disciplined energy and a respect for the unexpected, always leaving room for new directions to emerge within these eight ...
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