Jazz Articles about Gustavo Cortiñas

About Gustavo Cortiñas

Album Review

Amos Gillespie: Unstructured Time for Jazz Septet

Read "Unstructured Time for Jazz Septet" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
March 12, 2022

The premise of this interesting recording may well be summarized in the old Roman proverb, “Make haste, but slowly." Amos Gillespie is a Chicago-based composer and instrumentalist who has composed a nine-part jazz suite for a septet. In his own words, Unstructured Time is “about capturing childhood focus, creativity and peace through unstructured time." The title is a bit deceptive. While there may be a variety of meters that frame the improvised solos, the recording is in no way formless. ...

Album Review

Amos Gillespie: Unstructured Time for Jazz Septet

Read "Unstructured Time for Jazz Septet" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 23, 2021

Chicago-based composer/educator/alto saxophonist Amos Gillespie's CD, Unstructured Time, employs a variety of time signatures but is anything but unstructured--in fact, the opposite may reasonably be opined, as taut structure is clearly front and center on the album's four instrumental and five vocal numbers. In other words, “unstructured" in Gillespie's lexicon bears absolutely no resemblance to “free" jazz but refers instead to the struggle to find structure and balance in an environment wherein one is constantly bombarded with negative messages and ...

Album Review

Gustavo Cortinas Snapshot: Esse

by Dan Bilawsky
March 5, 2017

Gustavo Cortinas' Esse is a place where two passions meet and merge. The drummer's fascination with philosophy served as grist for the compositional mill, inspiring and guiding his hands and mind to create this deep-thinking treatise. It's a fascinating musical realization, exploration, and distillation of the works of Hegel, Aristotle, Descartes, Plato, and other brilliant minds. Cortinas' quest for self-realization and self-actualization leads him down a variety of paths paved by various human dilemmas and universal truths. ...

Album Review

Gustavo Cortiñas: Snapshot

Read "Snapshot" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
November 19, 2013

By now, it shouldn't surprise anyone that jazz musicians often live itinerant lives. Everyone is from somewhere, but usually it's not here, wherever that is. Early jazz musicians--almost exclusively American--migrated from all over the country to the formative hot spots in Chicago and then, a little latter, New York. Today's musicians make those same migratory journeys for school or a gig or a scene, but their points of origin are as likely to be from foreign countries as domestic. Starting ...

Album Review

Gustavo Cortiñas: Snapshot

Read "Snapshot" reviewed by Florence Wetzel

by Florence Wetzel
November 4, 2013

Snapshot is a terrific release by drummer Gustavo Cortiñas, featuring a dynamic combination of musicians who are all associated with the stellar Northwestern University jazz department. The group includes the department's head, the great tenor saxman Victor Goines, who has played with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Ray Charles to Bob Dylan. There's also guitarist Mike Allemana, who cut his chops with legendary saxophonist Von Freedman and then went back to Northwestern for a degree. And three recent Northwestern grads ...

Album Review

Gustavo Cortiñas: Snapshot

by Jack Bowers
September 28, 2013

Drummer Gustavo Cortinas, who leads a group of admirable musicians on his engaging debut album, Snapshot, was born in Mexico, received his higher education in the States (Loyola University, New Orleans; Northwestern University) and currently resides in Chicago. Besides playing drums, Cortinas wrote and arranged every number on Snapshot, showing impressive proficiency in those areas as well. This is for the most part a sextet session with alternating tenor saxophonists, one of whom, Victor Goines, a native of New Orleans, ...

Album Review

Gustavo Cortiñas: Snapshot

Read "Snapshot" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
September 1, 2013

Gustavo Cortiñas has long been a musical seeker and sponge. The Mexico City-born drummer relocated to New Orleans in 2007 to pursue a BM in Jazz Studies at Loyola University New Orleans, learn from the best around--like legendary NOLA drum guru Johnny Vidacovich--and soak in the sounds of that storied city. When he completed that degree in 2011, he packed his bags and moved north to the Windy City. While in Chicago, earning his Masters at Northwestern University, Cortiñas came ...