Jazz Articles about Mike Rodriguez

About Mike Rodriguez

Album Review

While it is true that much of the modern jazz landscape thrives on the burning fire of the avant-garde, albums like Steve Swallow's Winter Songs operate on an entirely different frequency. This is a classic ECM Records slow burner--an album that does not flash like lightning, but instead radiates a calm, late-night glow. It evokes the quiet stillness of sitting by a fireplace after the rest of the house has gone to sleep, where the music demands a deep couch, a ...

Album Review

Steve Swallow: Winter Songs

Read "Winter Songs" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
July 1, 2026

To create his first new music since the death of his partner, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow gathered a circle of close friends and longtime collaborators: saxophonist Chris Cheek, trumpeter Mike Rodriguez, drummer Adam Nussbaum, guitarist Steve Cardenas, and pianist Gil Goldstein. The result, Winter Songs-- Swallow's first outing as a leader in over a decade was recorded at Sear Sound studio in New York during September 2024. About the music, Swallow wrote: “I was there when this music ...

Album Review

Helen Sung Big Band: Oracles

Read "Oracles" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright

by Katchie Cartwright
June 12, 2026

"The jazz bandstand is where true democracy lives," the great saxophonist and composer Jimmy Heath told a young Helen Sung. “Everyone must understand their role and come prepared by doing the hard work of study and practice," he said. “Each person will get to say their piece, but it is in the act of integrating as a band that the musicians ultimately create something bigger, richer, and deeper." Oracles launches into a time and place where divisions are deep and ...

Album Review

Maria Schneider Orchestra: American Crow

Read "American Crow" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 24, 2026

Maria Schneider has a thing for birds. Credible sources have reported sightings of the jazz composer frequenting Central Park wearing a floppy hat, a pair of binoculars hanging from her neck. Her 20-plus minute “Cerulean Skies," from her album (one of her masterpieces) Sky Blue (ArtistShare, 2007) speaks to her love for birds; her fascination with their migratory nature and their arduous flights, which span continents and beyond. The composition “Bluebird," from the “Our Natural World"' half of her 2-disc ...

Album Review

Remy Le Boeuf: Architecture of Storms

Read "Architecture of Storms" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
November 2, 2023

It's hard to become bored or complacent when listening to Architecture of Storms, alto saxophonist Remy Le Boeuf's second album as leader of the twenty-member Assembly of Shadows orchestra. Every song is quite different from the others, and every one has its moments of shapeliness and charm. Le Boeuf arranged every number and composed all but Justin Vernon's “Minnesota, WI" and the album's nameplate, which he co-wrote with poet Sara Pirkle, he asserts, “on a brooding stormy ...

Album Review

Michael Davis - Hip-Bone Big Band: Open City

Read "Open City" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
July 20, 2023

Michael Davis is an accomplished trombonist who has had a long career of live and studio work accompanying a varied roster of big-name jazz and rock talents such as The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bob Mintzer, Buddy Rich, Paul Simon, and Sarah Vaughan. He is also an established solo artist and composer who leads an imposing large ensemble, the Hip-Bone Big Band. The big band's second album is an exuberant affair which reflects the joy of getting back ...

Album Review

Jeb Patton: Preludes

by Jack Bowers
June 13, 2023

A jazz quintet performing eight classically-inspired Preludes and Duke Ellington's wistful “Prelude to a Kiss"? How could that possibly work? In the capable hands of pianist Jeb Patton (who wrote the Preludes) and his quintet, quite well, actually. Patton, who grew up in a household where listening to classical music was the norm, never forgot those early years even as he moved toward jazz and found his calling there. When Covid struck in 2020, Patton had time to revisit his ...