Jazz Articles about Roberto Magris

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Roberto Magris: Kansas City Outbound and Restless Spirits

by Jerry D'Souza
May 21, 2009

Pianist Roberto Magris has scoped a wide segment of styles over his career. His main calling is in mainstream jazz, but he has sailed into several other tributaries, including progressive jazz with Alfabeats Nu Jazz and acid jazz with DMA Urban Jazz funk. Whatever the milieu, Magris plays with a focused sense for development and an assured knack for improvising.

Roberto Magris Trio Kansas City Outbound Pami 2009

Magris works in the “classic" trio ...

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Alfabeats Nu Jazz: Stones

by John Kelman
March 7, 2007

For those who think that authentic, urban-informed jazz is the unique purview of North American musicians, one need only look to Stones. Emerging from the ashes of the more electronica-centric Italian group DMA, the equally all-Italian Alfabeats Nu Jazz makes music that sounds like it could be coming from the streets of any large American city--or does it?

The Alfabeats member who will be best known to American audiences is Roberto Magris, whose mainstream Europlane group released the critically well-received ...

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Roberto Magris Europlane: Il Bello Del Jazz

by Budd Kopman
December 7, 2006

Il Bello Del Jazz is surely one of the most entrancing mainstream albums of the year. This group swings so effortlessly and with such sureness that its music transcends such labels as mainstream and becomes the simple the Ellingtonian “good." While this release sounds entirely different than Apparition, it has that same smile-inducing warmth that comes from musicians who have lived this music and are playing from within it. Herb Geller, regardless of his age (77), is ...

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Roberto Magris Europlane: Il Bello Del Jazz

by Ken Kase
December 3, 2006

Italian pianist Roberto Magris has been engaging in projects that cover a wide variety of styles for over twenty years. But his best qualities as a pianist and composer have always been in the straight-ahead jazz idiom. Magris clearly has a strong command of his instrument, displaying an innate romanticism that recalls pianists of a bygone era and a penchant for well-written, if fairly conventional, compositions that are balanced out by a unique grouping of off-kilter standards.With West ...

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Roberto Magris Europlane: Il Bello del Jazz

by Jim Santella
August 30, 2006

Pianist Roberto Magris leads a stellar mainstream quartet on this album, and guitarist Darko Jurkovic makes it a quintet on “No Sadness, “Parker's Pen, “Deception and “Il Bello del Jazz. Alto saxophonist Herb Geller provides a warm reflection that gives the ensemble a large portion of its lyrical texture. He and Magris come together with a natural love for melodic invention that swings comfortably.

The title track drives with a beautiful texture that proves seamless in its translation ...

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Roberto Magris Europlane: Il Bello Del Jazz

by Jack Bowers
August 23, 2006

This album isn't entirely new to me, as pianist Roberto Magris was kind enough to share an advance copy more than a year ago, before the contract with Soul Note Records had been signed. On this auspicious occasion, Magris' Europlane quartet is accompanied by one of the world's outstanding alto saxophonists, American expatriate Herb Geller, who has lived in Hamburg, Germany, since 1965. To say that Geller, who was approaching his 75th birthday when the album was recorded in August, ...

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Roberto Magris Europlane: Il Bello Del Jazz

by Jerry D'Souza
August 12, 2006

The Roberto Magris Europlane has had an evolving lineup that shifts from quartet to orchestra. On Il Bello Del Jazz, Magris settles for a quintet featuring Herb Geller. The leader is confident in several settings, from acid jazz to funk, free jazz and even rap. Here, he settles into the mainstream with what he calls a tribute to the form, exploring tunes that are comfortable in the niche. In addition to two contributions from Geller, some standards make for a ...