Jazz Articles about Rodrigo Amado

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 ...

Luis Lopes: Humanization 4tet

by AAJ Italy Staff
August 4, 2008

Una pulsazione ipnotica con la cavata del contrabbasso che aggancia subito l’attenzione dell’orecchio, il ribollio della batteria che swinga libera, ed il groove di fondo è servito. Poi entra il tenore, ruvido quanto basta, note in economia per frasi suggerite, frastagliate, penetranti; infine la chitarra, elettrica ma dolce, avvolgente e naive, fuori da schemi e modelli riconoscibili. Si presenta così l’Umanization 4tet, senza clamori, senza effetti pirotecnici, ma con un suono ben definito, un approccio compositivo originale, un fare un ...

Rodrigo Amado: Surface

by Mark Corroto
July 7, 2007

Like the preceding disc from Rodrigo Amado entitled The Space Between (Clean Feed), this outing works the same tightrope. The Portuguese saxophonist adds cellist Tomas Ulrich to this trio of Carlos Zingaro (violin) and Ken Filiano (bass) for an uncommon chamber jazz experience.

Amado is probably best known for his recordings with the Lisbon Improvisation Players and recently for the critic's favorite Teatro (Clean Feed 2006) with Paal Nilssen-Love and Kent Kessler.

This quartet's recording, while ...

Rodrigo Amado - Kent Kessler - Paal Nilssen-Love: Teatro

by AAJ Italy Staff
January 29, 2007

Questo disco documenta il primo incontro fra i tre improvvisatori, avvenuto il pomeriggio che precedette il loro debutto allo Spectrum Festival di Oporto il 14 febbraio 2004. All'improvvisazione assoluta di questo trio paritario ognuno dei membri apporta la propria esperienza, maturata all'interno di altre formazioni analoghe, anche se di ben altro impatto: Kessler nel trio con Ken Vandermark e Hamid Drake; Nilssen-Love come componente di The Thing, assieme a Mats Gustafsson e Ingebrigt Haker Flaten; il sassofonista portoghese Amado nelle ...

Rodrigo Amado: Teatro

by Mark Corroto
December 25, 2006

Please just forget that I'm telling you this live recording from 2004 documents the first time these three improvising musicians had ever played together.

Teatro is by Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, first heard on the Clean Feed label, in the Lisbon Improvisation Players and with Ken Filiano. He follows in the footsteps of Chicago's Ken Vandermark: certainly his choice of instrumentation, occasionally the baritone saxophone, calls to mind Vandermark. But moreover, it's the sidemen who have made their ...