Jazz Articles about Adrian Joel Ruiz

About Adrian Joel Ruiz

Album Review

Chicago-based trumpeter Markus Rutz traverses a largely straightforward path on Many Moons, the ninth recording as leader of his own ensembles--on this occasion, his Third Coast Sounds, a sturdy sextet with slightly shifting personnel. Tenor saxophonist Brice Winston shares the front line on five of the album's eleven engaging tracks, alto Sharel Cassity on four, with saxophonist and album producer Greg Ward sitting in on the colorful finale, “Time to Spare," which he also composed. Rutz wrote half ...

Album Review

Markus Rutz: Many Moons

Read "Many Moons" reviewed by Ken Hohman

by Ken Hohman
November 24, 2025

Orson Welles once quipped, “I'm not such a fool as to not take the moon seriously." Journeyman Chicago trumpeter Markus Rutz takes this sentiment to heart with his fine recording, Many Moons, which finds him under the spell of our silvery satellite, leveraging it as a muse for the passage of time and a melancholy reflection of life's varied chapters. Vacillating from judiciously selected covers (Van Morrison's “Moondance"), catchy originals ("Penumbra") and jazz standards ("Blue Moon" and “Blue ...