Jazz Articles

Sao Paulo Underground: Sauna: Um, Dois, Tres

by Paul Olson
June 11, 2006

Expatriate Chicagoan cornetist/composer Rob Mazurek has been on an impressive run of musical projects and recordings; recent Mandarin Movie and Chicago Underground Duo releases pretty strongly undermine any notion that his move to Manaus, Brazil has been anything but inspiring. Sauna: Um, Dois, Três, the debut from Mazurek's new Underground collaboration with Brazilian drummer/programmer/trumpeter Mauricio Takara, is a fascinating, richly textured set that combine the best elements of real-time live instrumentation and electronica-saturated studio composition.A host of other ...

Sao Paulo Underground: Sauna: Um, Dois, Tres

by Mark Corroto
May 4, 2006

Even today we are just coming to accept the innovations and constructions of Teo Macero and the man who was credited with and blamed for Macero's snip and paste collage work, Miles Davis. In today's digital studio it is certainly easier to manipulate sound, and few artists do it as well as cornetist-turned-scientist Rob Mazurek.

Mazurek has been at it since 1997 with Tortoise, various incarnations of Chicago Underground bands, and Isotope 217. His technique has continued to ...

Rob Mazurek: Mandarin Movie

by Budd Kopman
April 16, 2005

Rob Mazurek is a multifaceted artist who explores not only music but also painting and multimedia. His work reflects ideas posited by John Cage about the continuum from music to noise, but Mazurek is allied with the “underground," and Mandarin Movie might be called prog-industrial or prog-techno music, sort of analagous to prog-rock or grunge-rock. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but much of the record is engulfed in layers of extreme distortion, and it felt to ...

Rob Mazurek/Mandarin Movie: Mandarin Movie

by Mark Corroto
April 15, 2005

Besides being a musician, cornetist Rob Mazurek is also a visual artitst. The member of Tigersmilk, Isotope 217, and the Chicago Underground Duo, Trio, Quartet, and Orchestra also paints and constructs multimedia installations.

Mandarin Movie draws as much from the musical aspects of his personality as the painterly ones. His band Mandarin Movie, whose name comes from a dream of rooftop flying saucers, creates layer upon layer of sound. Some of it is music, some is noise. But ...