Jazz Articles about Santi Debriano

About Santi Debriano

Album Review

George Garzone: Themes For Good Friends

Read "Themes For Good Friends" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 14, 2026

Tenor saxophonist George Garzone, a driving force on the New England jazz scene for more than half a century, traveled to the famed Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey to record the genial Themes for Good Friends, his 13th album as leader, with an all-star supporting cast that includes trumpeter Randy Brecker on his quintet's front line. The rhythm section (Luis Perdomo, piano; Santi Debriano, bass; Jeff “Tain" Watts, drums) is no less impressive, lending Garzone and Brecker ...

Album Review

George Garzone: Themes For Good Friends

Read "Themes For Good Friends" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
October 3, 2026

Tenor saxophonist George Garzone's album Themes For Good Friends is especially satisfying because the musicians involved seem to be simply enjoying the music, with nothing to prove. In the beautifully recorded session at Van Gelder Studios, Garzone has surrounded himself with fellow masters, including trumpeter Randy Brecker, pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Santi Debriano and drummer Jeff Tain Watts, each of whom sounds like an old friend, listening closely and taking chances. The album opens quietly with Fred Lacey's ...

Album Review

Kirk Lightsey: Live At Smalls Jazz Club

Read "Live At Smalls Jazz Club" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
October 20, 2023

The genesis of this brief (in terms of tracks; the Spotify version differs slightly) but satisfying recording merits some comment. During the salad days of the pandemic, Smalls Jazz Club in New York (and many other venues) were shuttered. Many artists were forced to improvise (in more ways than one) both to find a place to play and to make a living, neither particularly easy even in “normal" times. The Smalls LIVE Foundation raised funds through what it describes as ...

Album Review

Bill O'Connell: Live In Montauk

Read "Live In Montauk" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
August 19, 2023

A rhythm section which includes Santi Debriano and Billy Hart is nothing if not part of a potential dream band. In Craig Handy, one finds a post-bop saxophonist who played with virtually everyone worth hearing over the last third of the twentieth century. For a variety of reasons pianist Bill O'Connell may be a little less well known outside the New York City metropolitan area, but his signal contributions to Latin jazz with Dave Valentin, Jerry Gonzalez and Mongo Santamaria ...

Album Review

Bill O'Connell: Live In Montauk

Read "Live In Montauk" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 17, 2023

After years of gigging in the New York City area, while honing his credentials as a first-call contemporary jazz pianist, Bill O'Connell and his family moved to Montauk, the easternmost point on Long Island, where he expressed his appreciation of the area's many wonders by recording this impressive album at the celebrated Gosman's Dock, during the annual Hamptons Jazz Festival in August 2021. It is essentially a quartet date with trumpeter Randy Brecker sitting in on two numbers, ...

Album Review

Santi Debriano & Arkestra Bembe: Ashanti

by Jack Bowers
January 18, 2023

Panama-born bassist Santi Debriano's Arkestra Bembe is a nonet whose centerpiece is the bembe music of west Africa. During the Coronavirus pandemic, Debriano began hosting weekly bembes (musical celebrations) in the basement of his Staten Island, New York home, gradually assembling a group of musicians who would comprise the Arkestra and perform Debriano's compositions and arrangements. The result is Ashanti, an impressive studio recording whose framework is jazz but whose heart and soul are clearly in bembe. ...

Album Review

Santi Debriano: Flash of the Spirit

Read "Flash of the Spirit" reviewed by Paul Rauch

by Paul Rauch
January 15, 2021

Bassist/composer Santi Debriano has been prominently on the scene since the late seventies, when he worked for several years with saxophonist Archie Shepp. Born in Panama, and raised in Brooklyn from a very young age, his life was integrated with the many crosscurrents of jazz music in the Americas. He worked prominently with Sam Rivers in Paris for a few years, before heading back to New York to perform with the likes of Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Fortune, Larry Coryell, Freddie ...