Jazz Articles

Chris Rogers: Voyage Home

by Edward Blanco
July 8, 2016

Recorded in February of 2001, Voyage Home is trumpeter Chris Rogers' long-awaited debut album as a performer, composer and band leader. Released fifteen years after its original recording, the music documents performances from incredibly talented artists whom Rogers has known his entire life, including the late saxophonist Michael Brecker as well as a statement lifted from a 1965 album by Eddie Palmieri featuring legendary Latin jazz trombonist Barry Rogers--and father of the leader--who passed away well before this recording. An ...

MoFrancesco Quintetto: Maloca

by Ian Patterson
March 18, 2014

Italian bassist Francesco Valente's fascination with the culture of Brazil inspired the title of this album. A moloca is an Amazonian ancestral longhouse and a habitat for sharing knowledge, stories and music. In this case, the communal home is his adopted Lisbon and Valente's family is a multi-national quintet whose musical ancestors have bequeathed the jazz vernacular in all its global diversity. Together, the musical narratives that the MoFrancesco Quintetto shares draw from traditional and contemporary jazz, Iberian folkloric flavors ...

MoFrancesco Quintetto: Maloca

by Edward Blanco
February 10, 2014

Having appeared as a sideman on countless albums for over a decade, Italian bassist Francesco Valente finally unveils his first effort as leader with the modern jazz and fusion-like Maloca fronting his MoFrancesco Quintetto as they perform a session of fresh new originals exemplifying some of the styles and sounds of the Mediterranean area. Valente honed his skills as a musician while living in Lisbon, Portugal for sixteen years, performing in local venues and at various international festivals all while ...

MoFrancesco Quintetto: Maloca

by Chris Mosey
December 27, 2013

A maloca is an ancestral long house used by Indians in the Amazonian jungle to receive outsiders and exchange knowledge and ideas. Italian bassist Francesco Valente became fascinated with the idea of the maloca on a trip to Brazil, Bolivia and Peru. A close perusal of the album cover reveals him doing a push-up between the M and the L of MALOCA at Uyuni, in Bolivia as a tropical storm looms. Valente, 39, now ...

Denis DiBlasio Quintet: Where the Jade Buddha Lives

by Dan McClenaghan
December 8, 2011

As a former member/musical director of trumpeter Maynard Ferguson's band, baritone saxophonist Denis DiBlasio is certainly no stranger to mapping out music and following charts. But he also has an adventurous streak, one in which the slightest of frameworks is laid down--maybe just a mood suggested or, perhaps even, a single note brought up as the basis for a mood--and the musicians are allowed free reign within these loose architectures.Of course the right musicians need to be picked; ...

Daniel Ori: So It Goes

by C. Michael Bailey
May 23, 2010

There exists a triple point where adult contemporary, modern, and acoustic improvisatory jazz meet and exist together in an equilibrium where none of the three schools dominate the other two. While real, this creative point remains oddly elusive. Enter Israeli bassist Daniel Ori, whose second recording, So It Goes edges ever closer to the desirable goal of modern jazz parity--the perfect meeting of style and substance. Bassist/composer Daniel Ori is successfully divining his way to this constantly moving creative point. ...

Daniel Ori: So It Goes

by Jerry D'Souza
February 15, 2010

Fate deals its own cards. The first instrument of choice for bassist Daniel Ori was the piano which he began playing at his grandmother's house. When he was 14, Ori noticed his brother's electric bass and picked it up. From then on he began his musical journey getting involved with jazz which he began studying in Israel. He later continued his studies at the Berklee College of Music.

Ori recorded his first album, Money (Fourward Quartet, 2005), in Israel with ...

Steve Blanco Trio: Piano Warrior

by Glenn Astarita
May 2, 2009

A true piano warrior in every sense, Steve Blanco's second solo release offers an expansion to applications previously encountered via Contact, his independent 2006 trio debut. He offers the antidote to the customary trio format with an abundance of jazz-based thematic forays that project a contrasting spell to the typical ballad-bop-swing concepts.

Blanco combats any semblance of piano trio listening fatigue with explosive themes, subtle nuances and unanticipated shifts in tempo. The crack rhythm section abets the leader's ...

Bob Rodriguez: Portraits

by Elliott Simon
April 1, 2009

There are times when there's the urge to put on some solo piano music, turn down the lights and experience the intimacy that no other instrument can so perfectly create. And while the pensive Portraits that Bob Rodriguez paints on this solo effort are done up in somber tones there is an immeasurable beauty to these dusky renderings. Recorded almost 15 years ago, Rodriguez impresses with both harmonic and melodic mastery. But it is the ways in which these two ...

Bob Rodriguez: Portraits

by Glenn Astarita
March 7, 2009

Recorded in 1994 and released in 2009, New York area pianist Bob Rodriguez doesn't delve into an existential framework splattered with hidden meanings. Simply stated, the album title intimates the artist's personalized musical portraitures equally divided between standards and originals.

The pianist communicates great depth amid soul-stirring choruses and animated right hand leads. Rodriguez is a poet via his fusion of lush themes with probing storylines, all enamored by his gentle touch and acute penchant for modulating numerous ...