Jazz Articles about Ricky Rodriguez

About Ricky Rodriguez

Album Review

Michael Marcus Quartet: Next Stop Down!

Read "Next Stop Down!" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
August 16, 2026

A fixture in the avant-garde jazz community since the early 1990s, multi-instrumentalist Michael Marcus has done notable work with his own ensembles and alongside other prominent improvisers such as William Parker, Sonny Simmons, Andrew Cyrille and Joe McPhee. His first release with ESP-Disk in 2022, Abstractions in Lime Caverns, featured the leader on no fewer than five separate horns, including the tarogato, an instrument which takes center stage on Next Stop Down!, Marcus' first effort with a top-shelf quartet which ...

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

Sergio Pamies: Time to Say

Read "Time to Say" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 21, 2025

Spanish themes and rhythms reign supreme on Time to Say, Granada-born composer, arranger and pianist Sergio Pamies' fourth album, one that is enhanced on its opening and closing numbers, respectively, by the presence of renowned woodwind artists Dave Liebman and Paquito D'Rivera. Not that Pamies' septet needs much help, as everyone is laser-focused and totally in sync. At the same time, Pamies, trumpeter Alex Norris, trombonist Marshall Gilkes and saxophonist Michael Thomas (on alto or soprano) are ...

Album Review

The Jamie Baum Septet+: What Times Are These

Read "What Times Are These" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
September 9, 2024

Nella sua nuova incisione Jamie Baum coniuga impegno civile e ricercata varietà di soluzioni musicali con voci e suoni di particolare freschezza. A distanza di sei anni dal precedente Bridges la flautista e compositrice firma l'album più riuscito del suo ensemble, in gran parte rinnovato con l'ingresso del trombettista Jonathan Finlayson, del pianista Luis Perdomo, del bassista Ricky Rodriguez e del percussionista Keita Ogawa accanto ai fidi Jeff Hirshfield alla batteria, Brad Shepik alla chitarra, Chris Komer al ...

Album Review

Jamie Baum Septet+: What Times Are These

Read "What Times Are These" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright

by Katchie Cartwright
April 5, 2024

Reading Marge Piercy's poem “To Be of Use" (track two onWhat Times Are These), Jamie Baum could be speaking of herself, one of those “who jump into work head first without dallying in the shadows, who swim off with sure strokes," knowing that “the thing worth doing has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident." What Times Are These is a satisfying form of this sort. Confined to her New York apartment during the Covid-19 lockdown, Baum responded ...

Album Review

Elio Villafranca: Cinque

Read "Cinque" reviewed by Maurizio Zerbo

by Maurizio Zerbo
May 21, 2019

Questo doppio CD è dedicato alla memoria di Joseph Cinque, che nel 1839 capeggiò la rivolta degli schiavi africani imbarcati sulla nave Amistad con destinazione Cuba e le sue piantagioni di zucchero. È un progetto ambizioso sulla diaspora africana in cui la narrazione vocale delle vicende storiche ben si combina ad un sontuoso apparato musicale, articolato in una suite di cinque movimenti. A fare da trait d'union, l'ancestrale retroterra ritmico della regione congolese, su cui vengono di volta in volta ...