Jazz Articles about Rick DiMuzio

About Rick DiMuzio

Album Review

The Greg Hopkins Jazz Orchestra: Chronography

Read "Chronography" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 31, 2026

On Chronography, Boston-based trumpeter and composer Greg Hopkins and his 16-member Jazz Orchestra revitalize ten of the leader's never-before-recorded compositions and arrangements, most of them well-known standards from the Great American Songbook, that span more than half a century of astute and perceptive songwriting. The earliest, Willard Robison's “Old Folks," was arranged for the Buddy Rich band in 1972; the most recent, Duke Ellington's “In a Sentimental Mood," for his own orchestra in 2018. Between those dates rest ...

Album Review

Bruce Gertz: Octopus Dreams

Read "Octopus Dreams" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 13, 2025

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 ...

Album Review

Fernando Huergo: Relentless

Read "Relentless" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 26, 2024

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 ...

Album Review

Mehmet Ali Sanlikol: Turkish Hipster: Tales From Swing To Psychedelic

Read "Turkish Hipster: Tales From Swing To Psychedelic" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 8, 2023

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 ...

Album Review

Felipe Salles: The New Immigrant Experience

Read "The New Immigrant Experience" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
May 21, 2021

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 ...

Album Review

Felipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble: The New Immigrant Experience

Read "The New Immigrant Experience" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
April 3, 2020

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, ...

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Album Review

Rick DiMuzio: First Offerings

Read "First Offerings" reviewed by Peter J. Luce

by Peter J. Luce
April 25, 2005

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 ...