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Jazz Articles about Gustavo Cortiñas
Emily Kuhn: Ghosts of Us
by Jerome Wilson
Emily Kuhn is a trumpet player from Chicago with a calm, lyrical tone whose music is influenced by the folk and classical worlds as well as jazz. That shows up strongly on the track “In Lieu of Certainty, Movement" here, where pianist Meghan Stagl keeps a rippling neo-classical melody going while Kuhn and guitarist Erik Skov solo in front of her with ever-increasing force and purpose. “When The World Is Young" begins with lovely drifting Spanish guitar from Skov before ...
read moreMatt Peterson: Better Worlds
by Hrayr Attarian
Chicago pianist Matt Peterson is a versatile artist who defies genres. He is both an accomplished, bop-based improviser as well as a sensitive interpreter of the Western classical tradition. Both elements of his style come together on the exuberant and captivating Better Worlds, a collection of 10 of his originals as well as a unique arrangement of The Beatles' “Blackbird." One of the highlights of the uniformly superb album is “Petrichor," which opens with Peterson's smoldering chords that ...
read moreJavier Red: Life & Umbrella
by Mike Jurkovic
The secret behind Life & Umbrella is that Chicago-based, Mexican-born pianist/composer Javier Red is a studied composer who puts a great deal of thought into the music he presents, both to his peers and to the world. But that music never feels calculated like an equation with an obvious answer. Just the exact opposite. So it is with wiry, creative glee that Red and his Imagery Converter--drummer Gustavo Cortiñas, bassist Ben Dillinger and saxophonist Jake Wark--double down on their bold ...
read moreJavier Red's Imagery Converter: Life & Umbrella
by Hrayr Attarian
Chicago pianist Javier Red and his quartet, Imagery Converter, follow their stimulating debut Ephemeral Certainties (Delmark, 2019) with the equally superb Life & Umbrella. Red dedicates the current release to spreading love and understanding for individuals with autism. The dozen originals which comprise it do not have traditional starting and ending heads, as concepts flow from one to the other. This gives the album its uniqueness and contributes to its thematic unity. The angular “Brain Check" starts off ...
read moreMichael Hudson-Casanova: Animus
by Hrayr Attarian
On his second release as a leader, the captivating Animus, saxophonist Michael Hudson-Casanova leads his trio on a cohesive set of eight of his originals. The contemplative, moving music is complex and nuanced, inventive and accessible. Hudson-Casanova, who has already demonstrated his superb compositional skills on his debut, goes further on the current album, creating a unique blend of a haunting ambience and provocative substance. Guitarist Erik Skov begins the title track with reverberating vamps which bounce off ...
read moreGustavo Cortinas: Kind Regards
by Hrayr Attarian
Drummer Gustavo Cortinas' previous album was cinematic in scale, and he has followed it with the more intimate yet equally enchanting Kind Regards (Saludos Afectuosos). Leading a quintet of young, intrepid, Chicago musicians, Cortinas interpretes ten of his own songs that explore themes of social justice, love, and life in general. “When I Leave You" has an effervescent cadence. Vocalist and pianist Meghan Stagl endows the lyrics with nostalgia while her keys chime with melancholy. Trumpeter Emily Kuhn ...
read moreAmos Gillespie: Unstructured Time for Jazz Septet
by Richard J Salvucci
The premise of this interesting recording may well be summarized in the old Roman proverb, “Make haste, but slowly." Amos Gillespie is a Chicago-based composer and instrumentalist who has composed a nine-part jazz suite for a septet. In his own words, Unstructured Time is “about capturing childhood focus, creativity and peace through unstructured time." The title is a bit deceptive. While there may be a variety of meters that frame the improvised solos, the recording is in no way formless. ...
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