Jazz Articles about Luisito Quintero

About Luisito Quintero

Album Review

Joe Syrian Motor City Jazz Octet: A Blue Time

Read "A Blue Time" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 10, 2026

Drummer Joe Syrian's spit-shined Motor City Jazz Octet keeps driving emphatically forward on its second recording, A Blue Time, using an impressive arsenal to scurry through a generally agreeable lineup of more or less familiar themes that have been given fresh coats of paint by seven astute and talented arrangers. Even with the various harmonic and rhythmic changes, many of which were inspired by Syrian, the music remains lucid and accessible, thanks to the clever charts and spirited ...

Album Review

Chris Parker Septet: Reunion

by Jack Bowers
March 30, 2026

This is a Reunion that Chris Parker was lucky to celebrate. In August 2023, eight months after recording his fifth album as leader and while vacationing in his native Oregon, Parker suffered a serious stroke that left him (temporarily) unable to walk or use his left hand when playing the piano. Before that misfortune struck, Parker had re-scored for septet a dozen songs he had been playing for years in various formats, from solo or trio to quartet or quintet. ...

Album Review

Spanish Harlem Orchestra: Swing Forever

Read "Swing Forever" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
July 4, 2025

La prorompente miscela di “salsa dura" con elementi afrocubani e influenze jazz torna in questo nono disco della Spanish Harlem Orchestra, sempre guidata dal suo fondatore Oscar Hernández. Se il precedente album era dedicato alla memoria dei grandi bandleader Manny Oquendo, Barry Rogers, Andy e Jerry Gonzalez stavolta ci si ispira allo swing delle big band, ovviamente sul modello latino. La funzione di questa musica è radicata nel ballo e un giudizio estetico superficiale può giudicarla troppo codificata: il suo ...

Album Review

Joe Syrian: Secret Message

Read "Secret Message" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
April 14, 2025

A title like Secret Message does make a listener wonder what it might be. Is it deeply subversive, like the Zimmerman Telegram, or apocalyptic, like Fatima? Of course, as someone is reputed to have said, 'Sometimes, a cigar is just a smoke.' So it is possible to over-interpret a title, which may, in the final analysis, simply be a title. Joe Syrian is a Detroit-based drummer, a city that can claim Brian Blade, J. C. Heard, ...

Album Review

Silvano Monasterios: The River

Read "The River" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
April 11, 2025

To enhance his musical excursion along The River, composer, arranger and pianist Silvano Monasterios invited eight talented companions on board to share the ride. He did not make it easy for them. As envisioned by Monasterios, this river is by turns placid or turbulent, sparse or overflowing--but invariably tricky to navigate and tame. The entire work, he writes, is “a suite of what I consider Venezuelan music," and was inspired by the people in his native land ...

Album Review

Joe Syrian Motor City Jazz Octet: Secret Message

Read "Secret Message" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 15, 2024

No fuss, no frills here, simply forty-seven or so minutes of generally bright and engaging straight-ahead jazz, stylishly performed by drummer Joe Syrian's admirable Detroit-based octet. This is music the group plays often, blending standards from the Great American Songbook with more recent themes by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Leon Russell and others. The congenial session opens with a pair of well-traveled standards--"Bye Bye Blackbird," and “Star Eyes"--and closes with two more- -"Night and ...

Album Review

Donald Vega: As I Travel

Read "As I Travel" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
November 7, 2023

Pianist Donald Vega's latest album As I Travel is a captivating musical memoir in which, through an intricate blend of melodies and harmonies, he weaves a heartfelt narrative which pays homage to the familial and communal influences that have shaped his artistic journey. Accompanying him on this excursion are drummer Lewis Nash, bassist John Patitucci and percussionist Luisito Quintero, each of whom brings impressive credentials with him. All nine compositions on this release were composed and ...