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Jazz Articles about Rogerio Boccato
David Lopato: Short Stories
by Jack Bowers
Short Stories, pianist and composer David Lopato's seventh album, is for the most part modern in the best sense of the word. Lopato's musical influences are wide, ranging from jazz, blues and rock to avant-garde and free improvisation while embracing themes from Africa, Latin America and Asia--most notably Indonesia where he spent a year on a Fulbright scholarship learning to play the Javanese gamelan. Even when fusing these diverse bonds into a single vision, however, Lopato seldom strays from the ...
Continue ReadingGili Lopes: Algures
by Doug Collette
Bassist, composer, musical director and producer Gili Lopes is nothing if not an astute judge of talent. After all, for Algures (from an old Portuguese word meaning 'somewhere'), he has recruited a redoubtable case of accompanists, not the least of whom is saxophonist John Ellis, he of fruitful collaborations with Charlie Hunter and Miguel Zenon among others, as well as a string of diverse albums under his own name such as Dance Like There's No Tomorrow (Hyena, 2008) and Puppet ...
Continue ReadingMichael Blake: Dance of the Mystic Bliss
by Vincenzo Roggero
Veterano della scena downtown newyorchese,Michael Blake porta al debuttto sulla propria etichetta P&M Records, Chroma Nova, ensemble dalla configurazione particolare con quattro strumenti a corda, due percussionisti brasiliani, il leader ai sassofoni e, per la prima volta su disco, al flauto. Difficile individuare un centro gravitazionale preciso in Dance of the Mystic Bliss, forse un'intrinseca vena melodica presente nelle dieci composizioni tutte a firma Blake, ma sarebbe fare torto alla grande varietà di atmosfere, di tessiture e di groove che ...
Continue ReadingMichael Blake: Dance of the Mystic Bliss
by Jerome Wilson
This is saxophonist Michael Blake's new group, Chroma Nova, which contains guitar, violin, cello, bass and two Brazilian percussionists. They play a set of compositions, inspired by Blake's late mother, dancer Merle Blake, which rely on fluid rhythms and textures taken in many different directions. Blake is often the main solo voice here but he also blends in with the other instruments to create all kinds of intriguing sonic fabrics. For example, “Topanga Burns" starts with a stately ...
Continue ReadingTorben Westergaard: Jazz Brazil
by Geno Thackara
For Torben Westergaard, sooner or later all roads lead back to Brazil. The special flavor of South American jazz shaped his life from an early age, and has stayed a recurring staple in his music from his debut Brazilian Heart (Self Produced, 1996) through the Tangofied (Gateway) series of 2013-17. If it's taken him a while to circle back to this favorite milieu again, that's because he has been roaming a long way in the meantime, from home base Denmark ...
Continue ReadingRodrigo Almonte: Distancia
by Chris M. Slawecki
"Every piece of music on Distancia is an honest representation of a pilgrimage of different distances that I had to walk, musically and geographically speaking, in order to find inspiration and to create a representation of myself as a musical nomad," explains guitarist Rodrigo Almonte, who was born and raised in Peru, completed Bachelor of Arts studies in Ireland and Brazil, and his Masters studies in New York and The Netherlands. As a result, Distancia presents a unique ...
Continue ReadingEarl MacDonald: Consecrated
by Dan Bilawsky
The searching spirit that drives the work of composer and pianist Earl MacDonald is both a reflection on musical curiosity and, to a deeper extent, a statement of faith. Bringing both of those identity-shaping aspects to the fore like never before, MacDonald uses Consecrated to work toward a higher purpose. Reshaping and resetting a series of traditional hymns in sophisticated yet accessible fashion, he conveys the core values of his Christian beliefs—love, kindness, charity—with class and creative purpose.
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