Jay Rodriguez - Your Sound (Live at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola) WHALING CITY SOUND 2018

You might hear Jay Rodriguez and wonder, "Is there anything you can't do?" The fact is, it might be tough to track down something along Jay's musical continuum that he hasn't done. In fact, he may be one of the busiest men in jazz, and one of the few playing most all the reeds as a leader and sideman with a wildly diverse cadre of musicians, synthesizing these experiences within his own projects.

Rodriguez's original work is daring, groovy, breathtaking and soulful, sometimes all at once. Your Sound: Live at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, captures all of that exhilarating rawness in real time. It is loose and lovely, with both rough and smooth edges and flourishes that reflect his ample international experience. Songs like the opener, "Ghost Dancer, " kick off forcefully, with a propulsive bass and a frisky tropical feel, while on the flip side, Rodriguez lays into romance, with a flute tour de force on "When the Stars Fell." The record closes with a bold cover of "Kiss and Say Goodbye."

Accompanied by Billy Harper on tenor sax, Larry Willis on piano, Eric Wheeler (also on Greg Murphy's Summer Breeze) on bass, JT Lewis on drums, and percussionist Billy Martin (of Medeski, Martin & Wood), Rodriguez frees himself up to showcase his work on saxes, flutes, and bass clarinet. The result is magical. Over his career, Rodriguez has tackled composition, arranging, accompanying, and leading. It is high time for the world to hear all the wonderful things Jay Rodriguez—musician, personality, iconoclast, and innovator—has to offer.

A versatile bandleader, with flute, clarinet and saxophone chops, the Colombia-born, New York City-bred musician is profoundly talented and incredibly prolific. He graduated with the highest honors from New York City's renowned High School for the Performing Arts and continued his studies at Manhattan School of Music and The New School's School of Jazz.

Since then he has had musical adventures in salsa with Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, Paquito D'Rivera, pop/hip-hop with Prince, Guru, the Wu-Tang Clan, DJ Premier and Groove Collective, straight-ahead with Doc Cheatham, Mingus Big Band, Chucho Valdes, David Murray, Craig Harris, Jason Miles and Miles Davis. He has played alongside Joe Lovano, Gil Evans, Elvis Costello, Stevie Wonder, Bernie Worrell and Joan Osborne, to name a few. Awards follow that kind of pedigree, and so should your attention. Rodriguez is quite simply a giant talent and Your Sound is just the beginning of his story.

Prolific. Prodigal. Profound. That is Jay Rodriguez. Sometimes the sound is explosive, wild and full of fury, other times his music aches with a passion that’s painful and bare. Always modest and reverent, Rodriguez harnesses the unbridled audacity of youth and melds it with the uncanny discipline of a hardened New York jazz veteran. Married to the song while sleeping with the groove, his sound sings of commitment to an ideal—it is spontaneity, culturally untethered and unpretentious, the excitement of far flung love at all costs. It is perfectionism kissed by chaos. 

– THE NEW YORKER

He could be breathy and insinuating on a ballad, brawny and extroverted in an uptempo… 

– THE NEW YORK TIMES

Fleet-fingered saxophonist Jay Rodriguez has played it all in New York: salsa with Celia Cruz and Tito Puente, hip-hop with DJ Premier and Groove Collective, straight-ahead with Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Barron and Doc Cheatham. His new band, SEVEN, pays homage to a recent discovery: the free jazz of saxophonist Ornette Coleman. “I felt like one of those folks who just learned the earth is round,” he says. Rodriguez took a deep dive into Coleman’s repertoire and came up with a brass and string ensemble inspired by the legend’s 1960s double quartets performING Coleman-inspired originals like “Your Sound,” as well as Coleman classics like “Lonely Woman,” at Winter Jazzfest. 

– NPR

Mr. Rodriguez is more than a musician. He is a visionary. Jay Rodriguez is the Latin American Answer to James Carter and a true light to hear and see. 

– Arnie Lawrence, Founder of THE NEW SCHOOL for Jazz and Contemporary Music

Havana International Jazz Festival Reedman / Saxophonist Jay Rodriguez, down from New Y0rk for the festival says, ‘I have admiration for the people and the culture and the way they persevere and are educated, in general culturally and musically. They are supportive of their own musicians, and the young musicians are skilled and well trained.’ 

– JAZZTIMES

His work is defined with versatility, humor and heart. His jazz playing is full of blues and soul. It is one of those voices that are hard to describe with words, and that is much closer to the spirit.

– EL HERALDO, Colombia

01. Ghost Dancer

02. Golden Earring

03. Clouds

04. Silk Stockings: All of You: All of You

05. Your Sound

06. When the Stars Fell

07. Spirits

08. Inolvidable

09. Love me Tonight: Lover: Lover

10. Kiss and Say Goodbye: Let's Just Kiss and Say Goodbye

Jay Rodriguez Website

Steve Davis - Think Ahead (SMOKE SESSIONS 2017)

IN LIFE AS IN JAZZ, you never know what’s coming around the next corner – so it’s always best to think ahead. Trombonist/composer Steve Davis not only offers those two words as a sound piece of advice on his new album, Think Ahead, but exemplifies the art of putting it into action. Think Ahead offers a master class in reacting to the unpredictable from an elite group of jazz all-stars whose ability to create spontaneously borders on the clairvoyant.

In part, that’s simply due to the fact that Davis has assembled a stellar group of masters: the trombonist is joined by saxophonists Steve Wilson and Jimmy Greene, pianist Larry Willis, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Lewis Nash, each deserving the title of “jazz giant” in their own right. But add the fact that the bandleader shares with every member of the ensemble a long and deep history, and you have the makings of a truly profound, flawlessly swinging, flat-out burning set of music.

“I’ve been deeply involved with everyone in this band on not only a professional level but as friends for decades,” Davis says. “So it was more than an honor to have this group together.”

Davis is also well known as an important composer and the program on Think Ahead features seven of his originals including six striking debuts. The balance includes two beloved standards, Polka Dots and Moonbeams and Love Walked In, as well as two jazz classics by departed giants Tony Williams and Bobby Hutcherson. Williams’ “Warrior” and Hutcherson’s “Little B’s Poem”

Heads of State - Four in One (SMOKE SESSIONS RECORDS 2017)

HEADS OF STATE, FEATURING FOUR OF THE MOST RESPECTED and admired jazz artists of our time releases its first recording Search for Peace. A band over 50 years in the making, Gary Bartz, Larry Willis, Buster Williams, and Al Foster had performed together countless times in different combinations and contexts over their storied careers, but it wasn’t until September 2014 that they appeared as a quartet.

The occasion that night was a tribute to McCoy Tyner, and the results were so inspired and the response so overwhelming that they knew right away they had something worth keeping. As pianist Larry Willis puts it, “I don’t think there are any bands that are doing quite what we’re doing right now.” Now, their unique chemistry and musicianship is documented on Search for Peace. It features selections by John Coltrane (“Impressions”), Jackie McLean (“Capuchin Swing”), Benny Carter (“Summer Serenade”), Billy Strayhorn (“Lotus Blossom”) and, of course, the moving title track by Tyner (“Search for Peace”) Gary Bartz contributes two compositions (“Uncle Bubba” which Gary performed with McCoy and “Soulstice”) and there are two standards (“Crazy She Calls Me” and “I Wish I Knew” which Tyner famously recorded with Coltrane).

It is a well-chosen and balanced set, but the selections are somewhat beside the point; this all-star quartet makes everything sound like magic.

01. For in One 7:18

02. And He Called Himself a Messenger 4:26

03. Dance Cadaverous 10:02

04. Moose the Mooche 5:28

05. Aloysius 6:37

06. The Day You Said Goodbye 7:55

07. Milestones 4:48

08. Keep the Master in Mind 5:57

09. Someone to Watch Over Me 8:12

10. Sippin’ at Bells 3:56

11. Freedom Jazz Dance 6:39