Jazz Articles about Rogerio Boccato

About Rogerio Boccato

Album Review

Michael Blake: Dance of the Mystic Bliss

Read "Dance of the Mystic Bliss" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
June 18, 2023

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 ...

Album Review

Torben Westergaard: Jazz Brazil

Read "Jazz Brazil" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
April 6, 2023

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 ...

Album Review

Rodrigo Almonte: Distancia

Read "Distancia" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
March 31, 2022

"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 ...

Album Review

Earl MacDonald: Consecrated

Read "Consecrated" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
December 26, 2021

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.

Album Review

Renee Rosnes: Kinds of Love

Read "Kinds of Love" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan

by C. Andrew Hovan
December 11, 2021

When Canadian pianist Renee Rosnes decided to make her mark in the jazz world, she wasted no time, making an auspicious start as a member of Joe Henderson's all-female quartet in 1986. Fast forward thirty-five years and her career continues to advance on an upward trajectory. Her third offering for Smoke Sessions, Kinds of Love, is yet another brilliant showcase for Rosnes, both as a pianist and composer. The top tier ensemble assures sublime renditions of the composer's originals, with ...

Album Review

Renee Rosnes: Kinds of Love

Read "Kinds of Love" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
September 22, 2021

Still riding high on the energy generated by her superwoman jazz group Artemis—Anat Cohen, Melissa Aldana, Ingrid Jensen, Noriko Ueda and Allison Miller— pianist Renee Rosnes, undaunted by the string of world crises but just as ruminative as the rest of us, elicits some of the most emotive and enthralling music of her career on Kinds of Love. Drummer Carl Allen and percussionist and vocalist Rogério Boccato set “Silk" into shadowy, tribal motion from which Rosnes and the ...

Album Review

Kristiana Roemer: House of Mirrors

Read "House of Mirrors" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
March 27, 2021

Kristiana Roemer is a young German singer whose voice has a lilt and plush texture reminiscent of Annette Peacock. On this, her first album, she uses her intriguing sound in the service of both conventional jazz tunes and floating, airy pieces which border on art songs. Most of the material here is her own writing, though some lyrics derive from others' poetry. In addition, she proves her jazz bona fides by including familiar tunes by Stanley Turrentine and Charles Mingus. ...