Jazz Articles about Rodney Green

About Rodney Green

Album Review

The front-line alliance of trumpeter Joe Magnarelli and trombonist Steve Davis is one of the distinguishing features of Decidedly So, Magnarelli's 2026 release in an impressive string of releases as a leader. Magnarelli and Davis interact in ways that reflect decades of experience in playing modern, straight-ahead jazz. The two brass instruments work together and respond to one another during eight tracks that include Latin-tinged hard bop, moderate and up-tempo swingers, a couple of ballads, and a brisk blues. Their ...

Album Review

Joe Magnarelli: Decidedly so

Read "Decidedly so" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
February 6, 2026

Trumpeter Joe Magnarelli has been a bright light on the New York-area jazz scene for four decades, since arriving in the city in 1986 from his native Syracuse, NY. On Decidedly So, his eighteenth recording and third for Cellar Music, Magnarelli ushers a top-drawer quintet through its paces in a pleasing session that encompasses a trio of standards and five original compositions, including four of his own. The only fresh theme not written by Magnarelli is the album's ...

Album Review

Joe Magnarelli: Decidedly so

Read "Decidedly so" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
February 3, 2026

Joe Magnarelli's Decidedly So strongly reaffirms the enduring virtues of straight-ahead jazz, recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's Studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, where these qualities have long been valued. Brought to life in March 2025 before a small but attentive audience, the session benefits from a rare blend of relaxed confidence and deliberate swing that can only come from musicians who know exactly who they are and what they cherish. Joined by trombonist Steve Davis and a top-tier rhythm section ...

Album Review

Joe Magnarelli: Concord

Read "Concord" reviewed by David A. Orthmann

by David A. Orthmann
November 15, 2025

Throughout a career spanning over four decades, much of it spent in the trenches of New York City's notoriously competitive jazz scene, trumpeter/flugelhornist Joe Magnarelli has established a distinct identity within the broad parameters of the bop and hard bop idioms. Concord, Magnarelli's third release for the venerable SteepleChase Productions imprint, arguably his finest work in the studio, contains his virtues in spades. The disc's ten tracks serve as a reminder that, for all these years, he has not been ...

Album Review

Sam Dillon: My Ideal

by Jack Bowers
August 12, 2025

Any impartial assessment of My Ideal, Sam Dillon's second album for Cellar Music (following 2018's Out in the Open), should leave no doubt that the New York-born and based tenor saxophonist has definitely hit his stride, punctuating an already strong and persuasive voice on the horn with ample self-confidence and and a bounteous wellspring of innovative concepts and ingenious phrases. In other words, Dillon is the whole package, swinging in the same league as such heralded contemporaries ...

Liner Notes

Wycliffe Gordon: What You Dealin' With?

by C. Andrew Hovan
April 2, 2023

Privy to the entire history of jazz trombone via the technological age in which we live, Wycliffe Gordon seems to have utilized this information in such a way that his own playing displays elements from various periods and a technical competence that is indeed remarkable. “I was most familiar, at first, with guys who played with Louis Armstrong, namely Trummy Young or Kid Ory and later on Jack Teagarden," says Gordon about the early years in his development. “Later I ...

Liner Notes

Dida Pelled: A Missing Shade Of Blue

by Dan Bilawsky
March 6, 2023

In a way, A Missing Shade Of Blue is a throwback to an earlier era, when Grant Green, “Brother" Jack McDuff, Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith, and numerous others were bringing the guitar and organ together to create beautiful music for the people. Yet this record doesn't necessarily fit with the work of those artists. Why, you ask? Well, for one, we live in a different time. But the era isn't necessarily the crux of the matter. The scope of ...