Jazz Articles about Troy Roberts

About Troy Roberts

Album Review

Grandiose gestures are well and good, but it's actually the small things, both independent and aggregated, that often prove most impactful. Those micro events or occurrences can lead to serious matters or link together to create an incredibly meaningful web of wonders at the macro level. That's a fact that Jackson Potter most certainly recognizes. For this, his sophomore date, the Minnesota-reared, New York-based guitarist demonstrates remarkable maturity and attention to detail while weaving together a smartly balanced program with ...

Album Review

Robby Ameen: Live at the Poster Museum

Read "Live at the Poster Museum" reviewed by Paul Rauch

by Paul Rauch
July 20, 2024

There are pluses and minuses to all recordings, the attributes stacking up like cordwood due to the virtuosity of the musicians, the compositional value of the tunes and the basic, primary aim of the leader. In this case, the leader, virtuoso drummer Robby Ameen, blurs the line between Afro-Caribbean rhythms and swinging post bop jazz. His music mentions in a way, that the divisions we may see between the different elements of the music that became modern jazz in New ...

Radio & Podcasts

Green Means Go!

by David Bixler
July 3, 2024

The colors black, white, brown, beige, and blue have all had a prominent place in music, but in the eyes and ears of saxophonist Troy Roberts the color green piqued his interest due to its ambiguity. Not only can the color green convey greed and envy or rot and decay, it can also represent nature and tranquility. Troy embraces green as an impetus to move and has named his new release Green Lights which is the subject of the first ...

Album Review

Troy Roberts: Green Lights

Read "Green Lights" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 2024

There is an abundance of listenable music on Green Lights, the album from New York-based tenor saxophonist Troy Roberts--his sixteenth as leader in sixteen years. Clearly, he must be doing something right. That “something" includes playing graceful and eloquent tenor, mustering admirable sidemen for this quartet date, and focusing on largely agreeable music (Roberts wrote all of the album's ten generally likable songs). The sidemen in question are guitarist Paul Bollenback, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Jimmy ...

Album Review

Veronica Swift: Veronica Swift

Read "Veronica Swift" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
September 13, 2023

Leave it to the irascibly spirited and octane-charged Veronica Swift to release the party record of the year! From the pure joy scatting of the blast-off opener “I Am What I Am" (from Broadway's grand musical La Cage aux Folles) to the rabble rousing, mad-cap Joan Jett jam with The Ramones finale “Don't Rain On My Parade" (only available on the CD and digital versions), the incredibly talented and free-swinging Swift swings for the fences and wins the home-run derby ...

Album Review

Veronica Swift: Veronica Swift

Read "Veronica Swift" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright

by Katchie Cartwright
September 1, 2023

Veronica Swift is a masterful jazz singer. Her craft is immaculate. She scats like nobody's business and her texted improvisations are inventive. What's more, she always seems to sing straight from the heart. All that might be enough for some people, not Swift. She is an artistic adventurer who wonders aloud on social media: “What would it sound like if you put together Ella Fitzgerald and--I don't know--Jimi Hendrix?" An answer is the third track on her self-titled ...

Album Review

Michael Davis - Hip-Bone Big Band: Open City

Read "Open City" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
July 20, 2023

Michael Davis is an accomplished trombonist who has had a long career of live and studio work accompanying a varied roster of big-name jazz and rock talents such as The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bob Mintzer, Buddy Rich, Paul Simon, and Sarah Vaughan. He is also an established solo artist and composer who leads an imposing large ensemble, the Hip-Bone Big Band. The big band's second album is an exuberant affair which reflects the joy of getting back ...