Results for "Francisco Mela"

Dezron Douglas & Brandee Younger, Samuel Blaser & Pia Hernandez

by Maurice Hogue
January 20, 2021

Coping with the pandemic has come in many forms for musicians. Bassist Dezron Douglas and harpist Brandee Younger decided to host a weekly streaming session where they played and commented on the world as it was happening in their NYC apartment. They culled an album's worth of music from the series and have now released it ...

Santi Debriano: Flash of the Spirit

by Paul Rauch
January 15, 2021

Bassist/composer Santi Debriano has been prominently on the scene since the late seventies, when he worked for several years with saxophonist Archie Shepp. Born in Panama, and raised in Brooklyn from a very young age, his life was integrated with the many crosscurrents of jazz music in the Americas. He worked prominently with Sam Rivers in ...

Emanuele Passerini, Jon Irabagon, Sylvain Rifflet and The Warriors Of The Wonderful Sound

by Maurice Hogue
January 6, 2021

Italian soprano saxophonist Emanuele Passerini says he does not consider himself a professional musician. He has a great job in the private sector, so he records only sporadically. Well, good thing he found the time to record Trio Geometrics with drummer Tiziano Tononi and bassist Tito Mangialajo Rantzer. It's a spectacular album, and a feature of ...

Triangulate the Landscape

By Drew Wesely

Label: Irazú Records
Released: 2020
Track listing: We Begin in the Center; Graveled Air; Follow the Leader; Scattered Moments; White Screen; Fragile Movement; Hideously Serene; Premonition; Pa’l Monte; Pettish Tears; We Finish In Between.

Ben Goldberg, Jason Robinson, Orchestre National De Jazz and More

by Maurice Hogue
October 28, 2020

This episode is a little “reed" heavy with debuts of new recordings by Jason Robinson and his quartet, Ben Goldberg and Kenny Wollesen's Music for an Avant-Garde Massage Parlor, Portugal's José Lencastre, Rachel Musson from England, and I.P.A. from Scandinavia, plus several other saxophonically inclined folks. The Orchestre National De Jazz from France tackles the music ...

Drew Wesely/Kenneth Jimenez/Francisco Mela: Triangulate the Landscape

by Troy Dostert
August 3, 2020

An interesting trio comprised of a well-established veteran percussionist, Francisco Mela, and two relative newcomers, bassist Kenneth Jimenez and guitarist Drew Wesely, the musicians behind Triangulate the Landscape are engaged in that age-old challenge of free improvisation: how to create a substantial musical conversation that combines separate, independently-determined voices into a larger whole. While the three ...

Francisco Mela

Francisco Mela is a favorite amongst jazz's elite instrumentalists, among them, Joe Lovano, John Scofield, JoAnne Brackeen, Kenny Barron, Gary Bartz, Bobby Watson and McCoy Tyner, all of whom cite his charisma, sophistication, and life-affirming spirit as an extension of his incredible talents as a composer and drummer. Francisco Mela was born in 1968 in Bayamo, Cuba. He moved to Boston in 2000 to pursue a degree at the acclaimed Berklee College of Music and, quickly thereafter, the faculty recognized that Mela had much to offer students and promptly hired him to teach at the school. Mela rapidly made a name for himself on the Boston scene, becoming the house drummer at the legendary Wally’s Café Jazz Club

Panagiotis Andreou: The World In A Bass

by Mike Jacobs
November 22, 2019

My first encounter with Panagiotis Andreou was while covering a bass workshop that included him along with the likes of Richard Bona (Zawinul Syndicate, Mike Stern), Michael League (Snarky Puppy), Dwayne “Mono Neon" Thomas (Prince, Ghost Note) and Wes Stephenson (The Funky Knuckles). All of these players seemed humbled by each other's presence during the opening ...

Ancestros

By Francisco Mela

Label: Newvelle Records
Released: 2018
Track listing: Side A: Black Movie; Duende; Vino; Ornette; Side B: It’s Good to be Free; Not So; Mumbo Jumbo; Ancestros; It’s Good to be Free.

Francisco Mela: Ancestros

by Karl Ackermann
November 18, 2018

One of the many fine musicians coming out of Cuba, Francisco Mela is an accomplished drummer/percussionist and composer. On Ancestros, his debut on the vinyl-only subscription label Newvelle, he has contributed seven original compositions to a collection that includes covers from Andrew Hill and Paul Motian. The album name--and its title track--are appropriated from Mela's prior ...