Jazz Articles about Rodrigo Amado

Humanization 4tet: Electricity

by AAJ Italy Staff
April 6, 2011

Lo si era capito già nel 2009, quando uscì su Clean Feed Humanization 4tet, che il chitarrista Luís Lopes aveva trovato la proverbiale quadratura del cerchio arruolando il sax tenore del connazionale Rodrigo Amado e affidando la ritmica ai fratelli Aaron e Stefan González (di recente ascoltati a fianco del padre, il trombettista texano Dennis González, in Cape of Storms). Due anni dopo, Electricity, fatica numero due del quartetto pubblicata dalla Ayler Records, conferma la caratura della band e, per ...

Rodrigo Amado: Searching for Adam

by AAJ Italy Staff
January 18, 2011

Spalleggiata da un'etichetta lungimirante come la Clean Feed e sostenuta coraggiosamente da festival pronti a rischiare come quelli di Lisbona e Coimbra, c'è tutta una nuova scena portoghese che si sta imponendo all'attenzione del jazz globale. Carlos Bica, Hugo Carvalhais, Gabriel Pinto, Mário Costa, Carlos Barretto, Hugo Antunes, Alexandre Frazão, Luís Lopes, Bernardo Sassetti, Zé Eduardo. I nomi da appuntarsi cominciano a essere tanti; e tra essi c'è anche quello di Rodrigo Amado, fotografo e sassofonista, a suo tempo fondatore ...

Rodrigo Amado: Searching For Adam

by Mark Corroto
November 13, 2010

Another spirited outing from saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, Searching For Adam finds the tenor and baritone saxophonist in the company of three of the most in-demand players working today: cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and bassist John Hébert. Like his previous discs, The Abstract Truth (European Echoes, 2009), and Teatro (European Echoes, 2006), with Paal Nilssen-Love and Kent Kessler, Amado unveils a keen sense of improvisation tempered with an ability to obtain an ensemble sound of composition ...

Rodrigo Amado: Motion Trio

by Clifford Allen
February 26, 2010

Abstraction is too often both separated from and associated with improvised music. Either sounds are divorced from meaning outside themselves, or expected to tell some sort of story. Neither euphemism really works that well. But image is a central fact of Portuguese improviser Rodrigo Amado's work, whether referring to the representational or nonrepresentational--after all, in addition to being a tenor and baritone saxophonist, he's an accomplished photographer whose work takes on the angularity of Stephen Shore (see his Surface (European ...

Rodrigo Amado: Motion Trio

by Glenn Astarita
February 16, 2010

Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado is one of the busier and more productive European jazz improvisers. He follows up his superfine trio release, The Abstract Truth (European Echoes, 2009), with a new and equally explosive rhythm section. Here, cellist Miguel Mira and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini replace eminent improvisers, bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love.

Amado--a prolific artist who often records for the increasingly noteworthy Portugal-based Clean Feed Records amid touring jaunts in the USA--is a formidable player who ...

Rodrigo Amado: Motion Trio

by Mark Corroto
February 11, 2010

Listening to saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, while knowing that he is also an accomplished professional photographer, lends insight into his sound and sense of proportion. His trio members, cellist Miguel Mira and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini, share his recognition of arrangement, distribution, and music-making dimensions. Motion Trio is a freely improvised recording possessing balance.

Amado's previous trio recordings with Chicago bassist Kent Kessler and Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love--Teatro (European Echoes, 2006) and The Abstract Truth (European Echoes, 2009)--iintroduced both his ...

Rodrigo Amado: The Abstract Truth

by Mark Corroto
September 29, 2009

Saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, bassist Kent Kessler, and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love is an international trio featuring players from Portugal, United States and Norway, respectively. But on its second recording, The Abstract Truth, the assemblage speaks the same language; its mother tongue being hard-hitting, concise improvisation.

This disc follows the Teatro (European Echoes, 2006), the trio's very first meeting. Where the previous disc was wide-ranging, barbarous, and marked by lengthy pieces, the music here is more concise, with most tracks ...