Jazz Articles about Luis Deniz

About Luis Deniz

Album Review

At a time when so much of our interaction is filtered through digital platforms, the album In Real Life arrives as a reminder of the power of human beings to listen to and respond to one another in real time. The collective JabFung has thrived on the chemistry captured in this recording. Bassist Julian Anderson-Bowes, drummer Anthony Fung, alto saxophonist Luis Deniz, trumpeter Adam O'Farrill, and pianist Rafael Zaldivar create music that celebrates connection, resilience, and trust. The session's eight ...

Album Review

Joaquin Nuñez: Ruta De La Clave

Read "Ruta De La Clave" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
July 8, 2025

Ruta de la Clave is everything a good recording should be: listenable, stimulating, thoughtful, a bit eclectic and, above all, musical. Joaquín Núñez and Habana Safari has set out to do a version of the “history of the clave." Of course, this is a unique vision, a distillation of Núñez's experiences as a Cuban-Canadian percussionist. But his overall goal is considerably greater, “a reinvention of Afro-Cuban jazz." That is a pretty tall order. Others will say ...

Album Review

Teri Parker: Shaping the Invisible

Read "Shaping the Invisible" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
September 26, 2023

Here is how to take an artistic vision to the next level: Find a room with a lock on the door. Step inside. Engage the lock. Examine the work of those who came before you. Then begin the process of your own creativity. This worked for pianist/composer Parker--so says her sophomore recording, Shaping The Invisible. Parker is a Toronto-based musician. Her debut album, 2017's self-produced In The Past (review here) is a highly engaging and beautifully ...

Album Review

Ernesto Cervini: Tetrahedron

Read "Tetrahedron" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 16, 2020

Matthew Zapruder, in his book Why Poetry (HarperCollins, 2017), draws an informative parallel between reading poetry and listening to classical music: ...the act of treating poetry like a difficult activity one needs to master can easily perpetrate ... mistaken, and pervasive, ideas about poetry that make it hard to read in the first place. Like classical music, poetry has an unfortunate reputation for requiring special training and education to appreciate.... This same reasoning applies to jazz, ...

Album Review

Ernesto Cervini: Tetrahedron

Read "Tetrahedron" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann

by Friedrich Kunzmann
June 8, 2020

A tetrahedron is a pyramid with a triangle base, thus a three dimensional shape consisting of four triangle faces. On the cover of his newest undertaking as a leader, Canadian drummer Ernesto Cervini uses this shape as an analogy to his working trio inviting a fourth member to the party. In this case the fourth person is New York-based guitarist Nir Felder, whom Cervini had met during his time studying at the Manhattan School of Music, between 2003 and 2007. ...

Album Review

Jacek Kochan & musiConspiracy: Occupational Hazard

Read "Occupational Hazard" reviewed by Franz A. Matzner

by Franz A. Matzner
June 4, 2020

Polish-born and current Canadian Jacek Kochan's 22nd release as a leader, Occupational Hazard, exists at the crossroads of straight ahead and electric jazz. A drummer, composer and arranger, Kochan has played with a variety of musicians over the course of his long career. On Occupational Hazard he leverages this broad experience to bring together an unusual mix of instrumental and vocal talent, establishing an intriguing blend likely to appeal most to fans of accessible tunes dominated by guitar ...

Album Review

Ernesto Cervini: Tetrahedron

Read "Tetrahedron" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 29, 2020

Toronto-based drummer Ernesto Cervini juggles a lot of ensembles: the Turboprop sextet, a pair of co-led trios, MEM 3 and Myriad3, and chordless trio Tunetown. Add to that another trio, Tetrahedron, offing up an eponymous debut with guitarist Nir Felder and his Fender Stratocaster sitting in to add some electric chording to the mix, electric bassist Rich Brown adding a funkier vibe than is normally found on a Cervini project, and the Cuban-born and now Toronto-based saxophonist Luiz Deniz injecting ...