Results for "Alex Conde"

Alex Conde

The singular music of jazz legend Thelonious Monk has been interpreted by countless players over the years. Great jazz pianists like Bud Powell, McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans, Randy Weston, Barry Harris, Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea have dealt with his unorthodox dissonances, angular melodic twists, percussive attack and dramatic use of silences and hesitations. Saxophonists from Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane to Steve Lacy and Anthony Braxton and trumpeters from Miles Davis and Chet Baker to Woody Shaw and Wallace Roney have covered Monk’s music. Others like salsa king Tito Puente and trumpeter- conguero Jerry Gonzalez and his Fort Apache Band have interpreted Monk’s idiosyncratic rhythms through their own Afro-Cuban prism while the great Andalusian pianist Chano Dominguez has offered a passionate flamenco spin on Monk. What is it about Monk's music that makes it so 'ripe' for interpretation? “It’s because he’s so hip in so many ways!,” says the Valencia-born pianist-composer and current Bay Area resident Alex Conde

Chris Trinidad: Chris Trinidad's Changing Tides

by Chris M. Slawecki
April 6, 2022

During the course of 2021's lockdowns and distancing, music educator and bassist Chris Trinidad began to wonder if technology was bringing people together or keeping people apart. During these reflections, he reengaged with music he had written years earlier, for a release he titled Certain Times (Iridium, 2014). “The compositions on that album were written in ...

Monsters from the Jazzlab

by Chris M. Slawecki
March 17, 2022

Rodrigo Almonte Distancia Odradek Records 2021 “Every piece of music on Distancia is an honest representation of a pilgrimage of different distances that I had to walk, musically and geographically speaking, in order to find inspiration and to create a representation of myself as a musical ...

Mark Sullivan's Favorite Recordings of 2021

by Mark Sullivan
January 11, 2022

2021 may have been a year best forgotten in many ways, as the pandemic continued to make “normal life" look like a distant memory. There was a brief bright spot after the introduction of the vaccines, only to be crushed by the emergence of the Delta variant, then the Omicron. Yet somehow there was plenty of ...

Descarga for Bud

By Alex Conde

Label: Sedajazz Records
Released: 2021
Track listing: The Fruit (Bulería); Oblivion (Tangos); Bouncing with Bud (Alegría); Dusk in Saudi (Soleá); Wail (Calypso); Parisian Thoroughfare (Bulería al golpe); Hallucinations (Latin/Jazz); Tempus Fugit (Rumba); Celia (Bulería).

Chris Trinidad: Chris Trinidad's Changing Tides

by Mark Sullivan
December 29, 2021

Bassist and composer Chris Trinidad released the quartet album Chris Trinidad's Certain Times (Iridium Records, 2015) five years after relocating from Vancouver to the San Francisco Bay area. The compositions were constructed from an assortment of sketches, built on grooves and simple harmonies to give the soloists freedom. For Chris Trinidad Y Con Todo (Iridium Records, ...

Alex Conde: Descarga for Bud

by Mark Sullivan
October 21, 2021

Pianist, composer and arranger Alex Conde has a unique identity; he is a flamenco musician who combines flamenco with his jazz background. After the broad Latin fusion of Origins (Uprising/Ropeadope, 2018), Conde has returned to a focus on classic bebop. Like Descarga For Monk (Zoho Music, 2015), the pianist revisits a foundational bebop pianist. And the ...

Alex Conde: Descarga for Bud

by Troy Dostert
September 15, 2021

Having demonstrated his mastery of flamenco-flavored jazz on Origins (Uprising/Ropeadope, 2018) by featuring principally his own compositions, pianist Alex Conde has once again turned back to a bebop master of old--continuing a project he began with Descarga for Monk (Zoho Music) back in 2015. In this instance Bud Powell is the dedicatee, and Conde brings characteristic ...

Origins

By Alex Conde

Label: Uprising/Ropeadope
Released: 2018
Track listing: Bulerijazz; Upper West Side; Spring Break; La Leyenda Del Tiempo; Jungle Street; The Great Priest; El Emigrante; Soleà De Ismael; Descarga Por Bulerías; El Emigrante Instrumental.

Alex Conde: Origins

by Mark Sullivan
August 11, 2018

Spanish pianist/composer Alex Conde has roots in flamenco, but his influences range widely through Afro-Cuban and American jazz idioms. He is now based in New York City, a place with a pool of musicians ideally suited to the musical blend he creates. The “origins" of the title refer to all of the pianist's roots, which he ...