Jazz Articles about Joshua Ramos

About Joshua Ramos

Album Review

Anne Burnell: This Could Be The Start of Something Big

Read "This Could Be The Start of Something Big" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
June 3, 2025

This could be the Start of Something is a pleasant recording. It is a joint work by a pair of well-known Chicago cabaret singers, Anne Burnell and Mark Burnell. They are hardly novices, so the production is professional in every way. They are willing to take some risks as well. They handle “Joy Spring," a version of which was wonderfully done by Manhattan Transfer with Dizzy Gillespie on Vocalese (Atlantic Records, 1985). Experienced singers will know the Transfer's version, which ...

Album Review

Carlos Vega: Art of the Messenger

Read "Art of the Messenger" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 30, 2021

Tenor saxophonist Carlos Vega is a steeped-in-the-tradition fan of early bebop, displaying his passion for the genre with his nods to alto saxophonist Charlie Parker on Bird's Ticket (2016) and Bird's Up (2017), both on Origin Records. With Art Of The Messenger he shifts his focus to Art Blakey, the drummer who led the Jazz Messengers from 1955 onward for thirty-five years, helping define—in the early years—the hard bop Blue Note Records approach to jazz. Vega and his ...

Album Review

Carlos Vega: Art of the Messenger

Read "Art of the Messenger" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 28, 2021

In case you didn't quite catch the “message" subtly embedded in the title of Chicago-based tenor saxophonist Carlos Vega's new recording, Art of the Messenger, here is a brief reminder that it was drummer Art Blakey who formed the Jazz Messengers in the mid-1950s and led the celebrated hard-bop ensemble until his death in 1990. The Messengers' roster of alumni reads like a Who's Who of Jazz Hall of Fame members. With that in mind, Vega assembled ...