Jazz Articles about Devin Drobka

About Devin Drobka

Album Review

Chicago-based tenor saxophonist Arman Sangalang, still in his mid-20s, makes his recording debut with Quartet, wherein his talented four-member ensemble uses delicate textures and shadings in lieu of heated fire and brimstone to amplify its even-tempered musical purpose. That was clearly Sangalang's idea, as he wrote all save one of the album's ten by and large tranquil themes (chaperoning the lone standard, Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen's “Polka Dots and Moonbeams"). Sangalang's unaccompanied intro to that ...

Album Review

Kenny Reichert: Deep Breath

Read "Deep Breath" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
August 13, 2023

Kenny Reichert is a Chicago-based guitarist of broad background, Berklee training, and wide-ranging tastes in pop and jazz. He has self-released one studio album, Interpretations (2015). Reichert records mostly originals. If you are looking for influences, “Spears" (a play on “Sphere"?) sounds Thelonious Sphere Monk-ish enough, with plenty of solo space for saxophonist Tony Barba woven in. Barba can hold his own with anyone. Reichert does not shy away from vocals either. His lyricist and singer is Alyssa ...

Album Review

Johannes Wallmann: Precarious Towers

Read "Precarious Towers" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 24, 2022

Pianist Johannes Wallman set himself up with a hard act to follow when he released 2021's Elegy For an Undiscovered Species (Shifting Paradigm) an ambitious set of the leader's distinctive compositions played by an all-star quintet and string orchestra. It is a jazz with strings that leans to a spirited jazz side--cerebral and approachable at the same time. Precarious Towers, Wallmann's 2022 offering, finds the pianist bringing in a different quintet, one which proves itself as adept as ...

Album Review

Daniel Thatcher: Waterwheel

Read "Waterwheel" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
April 20, 2021

The two electric guitars, bass and drums ensembles played a big part in shaping popular music. The early 1960s saw the Beatles walk this road. The Rolling Stones rolled that way, too. And prior to that British Invasion, we had the “instrumental rock sound” of groups like The Chantays in 1964 with “Pipeline," The Surfaris, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, and The Ventures, all groups that fit into the surf rock genre. From there we can go back to Link ...

Album Review

Tony Barba: Blood Moon

Read "Blood Moon" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann

by Friedrich Kunzmann
April 12, 2020

Madison-based saxophonist Tony Barba is a sonic chameleon, able to wrap catchy melodic themes around a variety of different genres. His ear for melodies is on full display on his newest outing for the Midwestern label Shifting Paradigm Records. In interplay with Chicagoan guitarist Matt Gold and the Madison-based rhythm section of John Christensen on bass and Devin Drobka on drums, Blood Moon sees Barba drawing from reggae as much as from pop and country, together interpreted with jazzy sensibilities ...