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Rodrigo Amado: Motion Trio
by Clifford Allen
Abstraction is too often both separated from and associated with improvised music. Either sounds are divorced from meaning outside themselves, or expected to tell some sort of story. Neither euphemism really works that well. But image is a central fact of Portuguese improviser Rodrigo Amado's work, whether referring to the representational or nonrepresentational--after all, in addition to being a tenor and baritone saxophonist, he's an accomplished photographer whose work takes on the angularity of Stephen Shore (see his Surface (European ...
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by Glenn Astarita
Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado is one of the busier and more productive European jazz improvisers. He follows up his superfine trio release, The Abstract Truth (European Echoes, 2009), with a new and equally explosive rhythm section. Here, cellist Miguel Mira and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini replace eminent improvisers, bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love.
Amado--a prolific artist who often records for the increasingly noteworthy Portugal-based Clean Feed Records amid touring jaunts in the USA--is a formidable player who ...
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by Mark Corroto
Listening to saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, while knowing that he is also an accomplished professional photographer, lends insight into his sound and sense of proportion. His trio members, cellist Miguel Mira and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini, share his recognition of arrangement, distribution, and music-making dimensions. Motion Trio is a freely improvised recording possessing balance.
Amado's previous trio recordings with Chicago bassist Kent Kessler and Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love--Teatro (European Echoes, 2006) and The Abstract Truth (European Echoes, 2009)--iintroduced both his ...
read moreRodrigo Amado: The Abstract Truth
by Mark Corroto
Saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, bassist Kent Kessler, and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love is an international trio featuring players from Portugal, United States and Norway, respectively. But on its second recording, The Abstract Truth, the assemblage speaks the same language; its mother tongue being hard-hitting, concise improvisation.
This disc follows the Teatro (European Echoes, 2006), the trio's very first meeting. Where the previous disc was wide-ranging, barbarous, and marked by lengthy pieces, the music here is more concise, with most tracks ...
read moreRodrigo Amado: Surface
by Mark Corroto
Like the preceding disc from Rodrigo Amado entitled The Space Between (Clean Feed), this outing works the same tightrope. The Portuguese saxophonist adds cellist Tomas Ulrich to this trio of Carlos Zingaro (violin) and Ken Filiano (bass) for an uncommon chamber jazz experience.
Amado is probably best known for his recordings with the Lisbon Improvisation Players and recently for the critic's favorite Teatro (Clean Feed 2006) with Paal Nilssen-Love and Kent Kessler.
This quartet's recording, while ...
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