Jazz Articles about Chris Mondak

About Chris Mondak

Album Review

Chris Mondak: Blank With Colour

Read "Blank With Colour" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
March 7, 2024

Chris Mondak is a fine, NEC-trained bassist who works in a variety of genres. But this recording really has him in a secondary role, as part of the rhythm section of what must be a version of his working band. The band is good; funky from soft to shout, turn up the volume. Dan Hitchcock's lead sax voice is strong throughout, and Jack Macklin and Gabe Feldman work very well with him. The rhythm section is terrific and provides the ...

Album Review

Chris Mondak: Glass Spheres

Read "Glass Spheres" reviewed by Kyle Simpler

by Kyle Simpler
July 25, 2022

Until now, bassist Chris Mondak has been impressing only live audiences. With his album debut, Glass Spheres, he hopes to connect with a wider audience. Mondak's life has been far from ordinary. He was born in Venezuela and raised in Illinois. While in high school, he was awarded Illinois All-State Musician three times and received numerous other honors. Later, he earned a Bachelor of Music degree at The New England Conservatory of music, where he studied with Dave Holland and ...

Album Review

Chris Mondak: Glass Spheres

Read "Glass Spheres" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
June 6, 2022

The 24-year-old Venezuelan-born bassist and composer Chris Mondak presents his latest recording of exciting new jazz on the varied Glass Spheres, offering an intriguing and absorbing selection of originals that explores a range of styles from swing, pop and bebop to avant-garde. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Mondak and his band have become a regular feature in Nashville's burgeoning jazz scene after a brief history of performing in venues from Cleveland to Chicago and New York as well as internationally including ...

Album Review

Chris Mondak: Eternal Youth

Read "Eternal Youth" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
July 8, 2019

Chris Mondak is a 21-year-old bassist who has already racked up some impressive jazz experiences, studying with Cecil McBee and Dave Holland, and playing with the likes of Jeff Hamilton, Dave Douglas and Wycliffe Gordon. His first CD is mostly made up of his own compositions, which vary between conventional acoustic jazz motifs and funkier electric fusion grooves. Two of his originals are actually based on jazz standards; “Voyage Maid" is a speeded-up variation on Herbie Hancock's “Maiden ...

Album Review

Chris Mondak: Eternal Youth

Read "Eternal Youth" reviewed by Don Phipps

by Don Phipps
June 20, 2019

New England Conservatory of Music student Chris Mondak's Eternal Youth harkens back to early and hard-bop eras. Mondak, who has studied with Dave Holland and Cecil McBee, composed all of the songs (with the sole exception of “Be Honest with Yourself," which was co-written with his grandfather, Art Mondak). The music has a West Coast—Pacific Jazz feel. Mondak includes ballads on this offering and adds the invigorating Charlie Parker-like “Du Wow," which sounds like it could have been staged at ...