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Ben Rosenblum

Pianist, accordionist and composer Ben Rosenblum has traversed a truly unique musical path, one that has seen him perform alongside world-class musicians across more than twenty music genres and fifteen countries, lead bands at prestigious venues across the world, all while maintaining a signature, melodic musical voice. Rosenblum’s journey has taken him on tours with Grammy-winning pop artist Rickie Lee Jones and Juno-winning contemporary Indian singer Kiran Ahluwalia. He’s played Brazilian choro with Ephrat Asherie Dance and Brazilian forró with The Late Night Show’s Nêgah Santos and famed forró band Forró in the Dark. His roots in jazz have led to an over ten-year relationship with Grammy-winning bassist Curtis Lundy, performing at festivals alongside jazz luminaries Bobby Watson, Sean Jones and Warren Wolf. He has appeared with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on accordion, and as a guest soloist on piano at Carnegie Hall’s Stern-Perelman Auditorium with Maestro Reona Ito’s New York Harmonic Band. Throughout it all, Rosenblum has always maintained the same priority - to tell a compelling story with his music, reaching the hearts of his audience and connecting on an emotional, intellectual and spiritual level.

Rosenblum brings this wealth and diversity of experiences to his projects as a leader, overseeing a full tour schedule as a solo artist, with his trio and most recently, with his six-piece ensemble, the Nebula Project. Since his first album as a leader, Instead (4 stars, Downbeat Magazine), he has since released three follow-up records to critical acclaim, including favorable reviews in almost every major jazz publication (Downbeat, All About Jazz, Jazziz, JazzTimes, JazzEd, NYC Jazz Record, JazzLife Japan and many more). Across multiple tours in Japan, Europe, Canada and the United States, Rosenblum has brought his bands to perform at some of the world’s most respected music venues, including Ravinia, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, the Library of Congress, Bird’s Eye (Basel) and Yokohama’s Himawari-No-Sato Concert Hall. At any given show, Rosenblum might draw on influences from ten or more countries, with interests going beyond jazz to include various music traditions from South America, Eastern Europe, Ireland, India, the Caribbean and the Middle East.


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Album Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project: A Thousand Pebbles

Read "A Thousand Pebbles" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Ben Rosenblum's Nebula Project is a group which incorporates sounds from all over the world. Gospel, Brazilian rhythms, European folk dances, and other kinds of music all mix freely with jazz in this exciting and unpredictable set. The horn players, trumpeter Wayne Tucker and reed players Jasper Dutz and Xavier Del Castillo, all do excellent work in realizing the leader's freewheeling concepts. “Bulgares" has Tucker's trumpet and Dutz's bass clarinet darting out in a whirling Bulgarian rhythm over ...

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Album Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project: A Thousand Pebbles

Read "A Thousand Pebbles" reviewed by Jack Bowers


This is music for the open-minded. On A Thousand Pebbles, his fourth album as leader, New York-based pianist & accordionist Ben Rosenblum's seven-member Nebula Project traverses a number of musical landscapes, from Bulgaria to Brazil, Ireland to Israel, and realms beyond, offering a pleasurable smorgasbord of contemporary jazz that is always engaging and never shopworn. Rosenblum the composer wrote all of the album's eleven numbers save one, Antonio Carlos Jobim & Chico Baurque's melodious “Song of the ...

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Live Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project at Smalls

Read "Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project at Smalls" reviewed by Doug Hall


Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project Smalls Jazz Club Album release concert New York, NY March 2, 2023 Beginning an east coast set of bookings, before a nationwide tour, and starting in the heart of New York City to promote his latest release A Thousand Pebbles (One Trick Dog, 2023), jazz pianist and accordionist Ben Rosenblum and his sextet are in familiar territory. Rosenblum and several band members are natives of Manhattan ...

Album Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project: A Thousand Pebbles

Read "A Thousand Pebbles" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Il giovane pianista e fisarmonicista (qui più la seconda della prima pelle, diremmo, almeno come incidenza sul sound d'insieme) newyorchese Ben Rosenblum firma con questo A Thousand Pebbles il quarto album a suo nome e il secondo alla testa del Nebula Project, sestetto (qui rinforzato da Xavier Del Castillo) versatile e capace di generare un clima solare e spesso festoso, intriso di umori latini e comunque popolari in senso lato (Rosenblum, che non di rado si sovrappone su entrambi i ...

Album Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project: Kites and Strings

Read "Kites and Strings" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Si parte con un episodio che potremmo definire post-bop, “Cedar Place," uno dei sette a firma di Ben Rosenblum, integrati da “Somewhere" di Leonard Bernstein, “Philadelphia" di Neil Young e un tradizionale bulgaro, ma in fondo è una falsa rivelazione, perché a seguire questa che è l'opera prima del giovane pianista e fisarmonicista newyorchese si sdipana su toni decisamente variegati, in cui il grande ceppo jazzistico è certo perfettamente avvertibile, ma i vari episodi sono più compositi, qua e là ...

4
Album Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project: Kites and Strings

Read "Kites and Strings" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Ben Rosenblum uses a lot of different instrumental elements on this release. For starters, he himself plays both piano and accordion, and his sextet also features trumpet, reeds and guitar. In addition, vibraphone and trombone show up on some tracks. That creates a blend of various textures and sounds which bring variety to this program of bright jazz compositions. Rosenblum's accordion flows together nicely with the sounds of Wayne Tucker's trumpet, and Jasper Dutz's bass clarinet on the ...

3
Album Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project: Kites and Strings

Read "Kites and Strings" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Expectations are necessarily guarded when preparing to appraise a recording by the Nebula Project whose leader plays accordion. Be that as it may, any such uneasiness is quickly erased by Ben Rosenblum and his doughty ensemble whose music is decidedly colorful, melodic and accessible—which is not meant to undervalue diversity, another of its discernible points. Rosenblum, who wrote seven of the album's ten numbers, draws on influences as varied as klezmer jazz, Bulgarian folk music and even Johannes Brahms to ...

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"The music is thoughtful. . . . Rosenblum and Lundy caress [the music] with the reverence it merits." Bob Doerschuk, Downbeat Magazine "There do emerge conservatoire aces with grit in their imaginations and a facility to express such in their playing. Ben Rosenblum is one such performer/composer." C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz "Hands of a diamond cutter" George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly "Certainly the kind of cat that's going to go the distance" Chris Spector, Midwest Record

Photos

Concerts

Apr 26 Fri

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Mr. Inevitable

MEII Enterprises
2024

buy

A Thousand Pebbles

Self Produced
2023

buy

Homage to Gramlis

Self-Produced
2023

buy

Kites and Strings

One Trick Dog Records
2020

buy

River City

One Trick Dog Records
2018

buy

Instead

One Trick Dog Records
2017

buy

Gone Tree

From: Homage to Gramlis
By Ben Rosenblum

Implicit Attitude

From: A Thousand Pebbles
By Ben Rosenblum

Izpoved

From: Kites and Strings
By Ben Rosenblum

Videos

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