Jazz Articles about Thom Rotella

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Antonio Adolfo: Balaios

by Katchie Cartwright
July 20, 2026

Antonio Adolfo draws a parallel between balaios, the baskets that African Brazilian women have carried on their heads for centuries, and musical albums. “Each piece is placed carefully inside, shaped by the moment in which it was born, yet carried into the present with renewed meaning," he says. He speaks of Balaios as a gathering of “what he has cultivated over time--ideas, memories, and melodies." The project, a retrospective of sorts, has a particular focus on the composer-pianist's long association ...

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Tom Ranier: This Way

by Hrayr Attarian
October 7, 2020

Multi-instrumentalist Tom Rainer is a genre-defying artist who has a uniquely accessible style with a cinematic approach to orchestration. The enjoyable This Way is made up of several of his own compositions as well as a few covers, all of which Rainer and his quartet interpret with sophistication and elegance. The funky title track, for instance, features Rainer leading from the piano with a clean and crisp cascade of notes. Overdubbed woodwinds add a soulful touch to the ...

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Tom Ranier: This Way

by Dan McClenaghan
August 17, 2020

The versatile multi-instrumentalist Tom Ranier has enjoyed a busy career, playing pop styles, electronic music and jazz. Prolific as a collaborator—Terry Gibbs, George Coleman, Placido Domingo—he also boasts a grounding in classical music. This Way features Rainier playing mostly his own compositions on piano, synthesizers, saxophones and clarinets, with some help from his friends, guitarist Thom Rotella, bassist Trey Henry and drummer Ralph Humphrey. On this, his first recording under his own name since Bright Idea (Primrose Lane, ...

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Diane Schuur: Running on Faith

by C. Michael Bailey
May 29, 2020

Pianist and vocalist Diane “Deedles" Schuur and Wessell “Warmdaddy" Anderson may be the last jazz artists to have musically-anointed monikers, from a genre replete with them (Lester “Prez" Young, Billie “Lady Day" Holiday, Johnny “Rabbit" Hodges, Julian “Cannonball" Adderley and “John Birks “Dizzy" Gillespie). Schuur was named “Deedles" as a child by her mother. The name stuck and proved both inspirational and descriptive for the accomplished singer and pianist, blind from birth, who has performed with the luminaries of jazz. ...

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Silvio Amato: Variations Of Relevance

by Jim Worsley
April 16, 2020

Silvio Amato has a well-established career as a composer, arranger, and film scorer. Amongst other projects, the Italian-born pianist has written soundtracks for major motion pictures, a multitude of pieces for children's television programming, theme songs for a variety of television shows, and has been highly successful with ice ballets. His compositions for Peter Pan, Snow White, and Beauty and the Beast have been taken to the ice all over Europe. He has also composed pop music. Coupled with a ...

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Thom Rotella: Out of the Blues

by AAJ Italy Staff
September 2, 2008

Il chitarrista americano Thom Rotella è un veterano degli studi di registrazione e ha prestato la sua chitarra elettrica a mille situazioni commerciali che vanno dalla musica da film ai jingle pubblicitari, ma la sua vera anima è da ricercare nei territori del blues jazzistico, dalle parti del leggendario Wes Montgomery, una influenza assolutamente evidente e certamente mai negata. Sin dai due brani iniziali il quartetto di Rotella ha modo di dimostrare una buona intesa e marcia come un trenino ...

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Thom Rotella 4-tet: Out of the Blues

by C. Michael Bailey
June 1, 2008

Let's hear it for the straight-ahead, blues-drenched, Blue Note circa 1955 blowing session. Sometimes after feasting on the rich duck pate of ECM or the decadent foie gras of Winter & Winter, the listener just craves the black-eyed peas and collards simplicity of the blues. Let's also hear it for a full, round arch top guitar tone, each note audible, each chord distinct. That pretty well defines Thom Rotella and his guitar style.

Another facet of Rotella's guitar ...