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Jazz Articles about Rick DiMuzio
Bruce Gertz: Octopus Dreams
by Jack Bowers
Veteran bassist and composer Bruce Gertz, who has more than 20 albums under his belt in a career spanning more than half a century, wrote and arranged every number on his latest recording, Octopus Dreams, wherein his skills in every realm are essential to its outcome. As a bassist, Gertz is sharp and perceptive; as a composer, quite capable within his area of preference, which basically encompasses contemporary post-bop jazz. In other words, Gertz writes well without ...
Continue ReadingFernando Huergo: Relentless
by Jack Bowers
Argentine-born bassist and composer Fernando Huergo's heavy-duty Massachusetts-based big band delivers the goods on Relentless, a taut and vibrant review of oppression, discrimination, environmental challenges and other social issues, interwoven with Huergo's lively tribute to the saxophonist Ornette Coleman and a charismatic and thought-provoking survey ("La Vida Sigue") on life after the Covid-19 pandemic, with all compositions and arrangements by the leader. This is well-designed, no-holds-barred big-band jazz, delivered with verve and enthusiasm by eighteen well-prepared musicians ...
Continue ReadingMehmet Ali Sanlikol: Turkish Hipster: Tales From Swing To Psychedelic
by Jack Bowers
Those who believe the term Turkish Hipster has to be an oxymoron should get to know composer/arranger/multi-instrumentalist Mehmet Ali Sanlikol, a Turk whose seventh album, subtitled “Tales from Swing to Psychedelic," is about as hip as can be. Sanlikol knows where is going but chooses to get there in his own special way, using every weapon in his musical arsenal to create vivid sound pictures whose jazz components rest solidly within a Middle Eastern framework that set them apart from ...
Continue ReadingFelipe Salles: The New Immigrant Experience
by Angelo Leonardi
The New Immigrant Experience è un lavoro multimediale, che combina musica orchestrale e proiezioni video, ispirato all'esperienza dei Dreamers, persone protette dal programma Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Accanto al compact disc musicale il progetto include quindi un DVD (curato dalla regista Fernanda Faya) in cui Felipe Salles intervista giovani immigrati, raccogliendo storie di vita spesso dolorose. Quelle testimonianze sono servite al bandleader da ispirazione per questo nuovo lavoro col Felipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble, una big band di 20 elementi ...
Continue ReadingFelipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble: The New Immigrant Experience
by Jack Bowers
Is it mere coincidence, or does the rise in the number of “concept" albums by jazz big bands signal that the trend is here to stay? Trumpeter Brian Lynch won a 2020 Grammy Award for his Journey Through Literature in Music, and there have been other tenet-based enterprises within the past year by Dan Jonas, John Bailey, Eric Weiss, the WDR Big Band, Marcus Shelby, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Chris Jentsch and others. Now comes The New Immigrant Experience, ...
Continue ReadingRick DiMuzio: First Offerings
by Peter J. Luce
Rick DiMuzio's First Offerings is a very enjoyable album of straight-ahead jazz. DiMuzio, a Boston-based saxophonist and composer, regularly plays in some of the area's best jazz venues, including the Regattabar, Scullers, and Wally's Café. I noted an Eastman School of Music connection with the inclusion of Ray Wright (long-time Chair of Eastman's Department of Jazz Studies and Director of the Eastman Jazz Ensemble before his death in the late 1980s) in the album's acknowledgements. Rick DiMuzio has a master's ...
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