Saxman Lucas Pino's That's A Computer out Oct. 19 via Outside In Music

Saxophonist/Composer Lucas Pino challenges jazz’s hidebound traditions on

thrilling third album with his No Net Nonet

That’s a Computer, out October 19, 2018 via Outside In Music, wears the derisive words of a

musical idol as a badge of honor, with spirited and virtuosic playing by Pino’s

long-running ensemble and guest vocalist Camila Meza

“It’s a pleasure to hear groups such as Lucas Pino's No Net Nonet, which are remarkably creative even as

they adhere to the basic precepts of melody, harmony and rhythm.”

– Jack Bowers, All About Jazz

“Cleverly arranged tunes that mix Mingusy grooves and harmonies and [swing] like a bopper in the process.”

– George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly

“Pino shows himself to be an inventive melodic thinker.”

– Shaun Brady, DownBeat

Pino and No Net Nonet perform last Tuesday of every month at Smalls Jazz Club in NYC

There's an age-old debate in jazz that pits heart versus head, contrasting emotion and feeling against technical virtuosity and compositional complexity. On That's a Computer, the third release from saxophonist/composer Lucas Pino and his No Net Nonet, the argument is put to rest with a resounding "BOTH." The hairpin twists of the album's seven compositions, contributed by Pino, his bandmates, and an unsung, anonymous video game composer, draw ferociously swinging, pulse-racing performances from the gifted nine-piece ensemble that are as moving for the soul as they are daunting for the brain.

That's a Computer, due out October 19, 2018 via Outside In Music, takes its title from a comment made by one of Pino's professors at the Juilliard School. The teacher, himself a respected instrumentalist and revered jazz veteran, dismissed the work of one of Pino's idols with those three sneering words. At least it put the young saxophonist in good company - the same professor had derided Pino's own playing in similar terms, despite never sharing his wisdom with Pino directly.

"It's like they say, you never want to meet your heroes," Pino says. "I never even met this professor, but he would apparently hear me play at school concerts and always infer that I had a lot of brains but not a lot of heart. He never addressed me, never introduced himself, apparently had no interest in trying to help me with whatever deficiencies he thought I had, which has been a piece of sand in my clamshell for years. So I wanted to turn it around and make it a self-affirmation."

One listen to Alex LoRe's jubilant, soaring "Antiquity" or the tender, romantic "Film at 11" and there's no mistaking the music of That's a Computer for the work of some unfeeling automaton. The title thus becomes a winking challenge, a musical Turing test that dares listeners to stay unmoved by the impassioned playing even as the music veers into greater complexity. That even applies to the one piece that does trace its origins to a box of circuits, "Baseball Simulator 1000," the theme song for a vintage Nintendo game that wormed its way into Pino's ears during countless hours playing America's virtual pastime with a few of his roommates. It makes for a surprisingly spirited finale.

Almost a decade into its existence, the aptly-named, tightrope-walking No Net Nonet has become a rich and versatile vehicle for Pino's open-eared approach. With the exception of drummer Jimmy Macbride, who came aboard for 2017's The Answer Is No, the line-up remains intact from the Nonet's self-titled 2015 debut: alto saxophonist Alex LoRe, trumpeter Mat Jodrell, trombonist Nick Finzer, baritone saxophonist Andrew Gutauskas, guitarist Rafal Sarnecki, pianist Glenn Zaleski, and bassist Desmond White. Chilean-born singer-songwriter Camila Meza guests on two tracks, providing gorgeous wordless vocals to Pino's tense "Frustrations" and a scintillating interpretation of the words of poet Pablo Neruda on Sarnecki's "Sueno de Gatos."

The close ties that the band's members have forged since initially coming together in 2009 were honed by a continuous five-year monthly residency at Smalls Jazz Club and are exemplified by Pino's playful "Horse of a Different Color." Named for the shade-shifting Technicolor beast of burden from The Wizard of Oz, the piece is a portrait of the composer's bandmates in collage. Setting out to write a blues to showcase their talents, he contacted each of the soloists and asked their favorite keys to solo over. The end result cycles through their choices, shining the spotlight on each member in turn.

The heart-wrenching "Film at 11" suggests a tragedy played for ratings on the nightly news but in fact traces the progress of a date, delicately capturing the nervousness, anticipation and thrill of newfound romance. "Look Into My Eyes" is a love letter to the Arizona native's fellow New Yorkers, a plea for eye contact and human connection in a city better known for impersonal brusqueness and unflagging pace. "You can feel completely alone on a subway car packed with people," Pino says, "and there's something wrong with that. Looking somebody else in the eyes can be an invitation to interact, and New Yorkers often don't have the time or patience for that. That can create a caustic environment, and I think that every once in a while if we just acknowledged each other's humanity it would make living in the city a little bit easier."

Ultimately, if albums like That's a Computer are the result of a negative experience with a musical hero, perhaps the bad blood is worth it. Pino laughs at the experience now and admits to enjoying the drama, though he has learned a personal as well as a musical lesson from the ordeal.

"When you grow up listening to somebody and really appreciate their artistry it's disappointing to encounter them and have the experience to turn out nasty," Pino says. "I think being dismissive is probably harming the dismisser more than the dismissed. I never want to be callous or indifferent to new ideas, new people or new ways of playing. It's like improv comedy: the first rule is to always say 'Yes' and build from there. Don't be afraid; no fear." And no net.

lucaspino.com

Rafal Sarnecki's new CD Climbing Trees, due out July 27, 2018 via Outside In Music

Polish-Born, NY-Based Guitarist/Composer Rafal Sarnecki Faces and Embraces His Fears on Exhilarating New Album

Climbing Trees, out July 27 on Outside In Music, features Sarnecki's stellar sextet with

Lucas Pino, Bogna Kicinska, Glenn Zaleski, Rick Rosato and Colin Stranahan

"Sarnecki ventures far beyond the bebop and post-bop idioms of the past and into a freer - though still chordal - musical language [that] already shows originality and daring. - Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune

"Sarnecki is a composer with a skillful touch at dramatic tension and pacing within his involved but highly melodic tunesŠ they're laden with dense arrangements, but the underpinning is a light touch of single-note guitar lines that vibe like a piano." - Michael J. West, Washington City Paper

CD Release Concert August 27 at Smalls, NYC

As a young child, Polish-born guitarist/composer Rafal Sarnecki suffered from an intense fear of heights and watched with envy as other kids climbed trees. Eventually he gathered the courage to face his fears, ascending branch by branch until he reached the top. That early triumph was the first of several fears that Sarnecki has faced down throughout his life, some of them directly impinging on his passion for music - stage fright, most pointedly, but also a more nebulous trepidation about pushing his music into ever more challenging territory. On his latest album, Climbing Trees, Sarnecki celebrates the ability to overcome one's most deep-seated anxieties and the exhilaration that can come from those confrontations.

"Once I challenged myself to climb to the top of one tree I felt an urge to climb a higher tree," Sarnecki recalls. "The satisfaction from fighting the fear was very strong and addictive. This memory from childhood resembles many situations in my adult life."

On Climbing Trees (due out July 27, 2018 via Outside In Music), Sarnecki takes his cue from that formative experience, crafting a set of risk-taking original compositions that dare him and his remarkable sextet to scale daunting heights. The stellar group - saxophonist Lucas Pino, vocalist Bogna Kicinska, pianist Glenn Zaleski, bassist Rick Rosato, and drummer Colin Stranhan - not only manages to deftly navigate the composition's knotty turns but finds exhilarating inspiration in its surprising branchings. The result is music that combines attentive focus on fine detail with the euphoria of an adrenaline rush.

What's clear from the chemistry and complexity displayed by the sextet is that this is a true working band, a relative rarity on the modern jazz landscape. In its present form the band has played together for nearly seven years, though many of the relationships stretch back even further. Pino and Zaleski have been a part of Sarnecki's band for the better part of a decade; Rosato and Stranahan joined the band in 2011. Since 2009 the guitarist and Zaleski have been members of Pino's acclaimed No Net Nonet, enjoying a monthly residency at Smalls Jazz Club for the past five years.

The sextet originally featured a trumpet as part of the frontline, until Sarnecki acceded to a Brooklyn club owner's request to add a singer to the band. Rather than hiring a standards-crooning chanteuse, Sarnecki enlisted Kicinska - a fellow native of Poland who uses her versatile voice and gift for improvisation like an instrumentalist. The addition gave the band's sound an ethereal but urgent quality, and the line-up fell into place.

"It took me a few years to learn how to take advantage of the potential of the musicians," Sarnecki says. "I have absolutely incredible players in my group that do things that are very unique, so as a composer I feel a responsibility to feature their individuality in my music. That can be a little risky, because sometimes I can push it a little too hard, but fortunately, we're a working band so I don't have to be afraid of that. This allows me to come up with ideas that sound really surprising, not the same as every other modern jazz song."

Zaleski's foreboding chords open the album on "Solar Eclipse," which contrasts Kicinska's airy vocal line with Sarnecki's gnarled lines. The leader's probing solo is a standout, exploring every hidden corner and skewed angle of the tune. The title comes not from the recent astronomical phenomenon but from the unusual way the piece was composed: it originated with a particularly tricky bass line, which eventually was dropped as the tune progressed, essentially eclipsing what was once the core idea of the piece. The growling lurch of "Dadaism" doesn't immediately suggest the subversive art movement that gives the piece its title, but it comes from a time when Sarnecki was studying Dada while working on his PhD in Music Composition at the Fryderyk Chopin Music University in Warsaw. Pino and Kicinska take a tandem soar into their upper registers, launching Zaleski into an intricately focused turn.

Sarnecki's shimmering arpeggios open the three-part "Little Dolphin" suite, which, like the elegant, Rachmaninoff-inspired "Zhongguo," reflects on the guitarist's travels to China. He first visited the country in 2013 at the prompting of saxophonist Nathaniel Gao, and has since returned annually to perform and teach. "I just fell in love with the culture," Sarnecki says. "Jazz was banned in China for about 30 years and in smaller towns people have no idea how to react to this music. But in bigger cities like Beijing or Shanghai there's a huge jazz audience and wherever you go, you feel more appreciated. In New York there's so much music that it's hard to impress people, so when you come to a place like China you feel like someone actually needs what you're doing." ("Little Dolphin" is the translation of "Xi_o h_itún" - the nickname given to Sarnecki by his Chinese fans.)

The heartfelt "Write a Letter to Yourself" was inspired by a friend's self-directed missive on Facebook, while "Disappointing Fresh Peach" takes its title from an anecdote in Kenny Werner's influential book Effortless Mastery. The dizzying "Hydrodynamics" is highlighted by a taut tug-of-war between Sarnecki and Stranahan, while closing track "Homo Sapiens" straddles the line between meditative jazz and chamber music, with Pino and Rosato steering through winding curves in perfect synchronicity.

Originally from Warsaw, Poland, Rafal Sarnecki is a jazz guitarist and composer currently living in New York. As a leader of his own projects Rafa_ has toured China, Malaysia, South Korea, Chile, Israel, the East and West Coasts of the U.S. and many European countries. He has shared the stage with top musicians from the U.S. jazz scene including Joel Frahm, Ben Wendel, Ron Blake, Ingrid Jensen, Alex Sipiagin, Willie Jones III and Gary Thomas, to name a few. Rafa_'s debut album, Song From a New Place (2008), was nominated for the 2009 Fryderyk Award, the Polish equivalent of a Grammy.

Rafal's second album, The Madman Rambles Again, was released in 2011 by Fresh Sound New Talent. Dave Sumner from All About Jazz selected the album as among the 12 most interesting jazz releases of 2011. In August 2014 Rafal's third CD, Cat's Dream, was released by Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records. In 2015 a group of jazz musicians in Kyiv, Ukraine started a sextet project dedicated to his music, performing compositions from all of his albums. In addition to his career as a bandleader Sarnecki is performs in a variety of New York based groups and projects such as the Lucas Pino No-Net Nonet, Annie Chen Group and David Bertrand Quartet.

rafalsarnecki.com

www.outsideinmusic.com

Roxy Coss - The Future Is Female (POSI-TONE RECORDS 2018)

Over the past year, it’s been quite tough for anyone not to hear the voices of women around the world rising up to proclaim “Enough.” Enough of the sexual harassment and inequality in the work place, whether it be perpetrated by Hollywood Big-wigs, national and local politicians, sports doctors, educators, or someone in your neighborhood.

Saxophonist and composer Roxy Coss participated in the Women’s March the week of Donald Trump’s inauguration. She carried a sign that read “The Future is Female”; that’s the title of her new album, a  of 10 original compositions featuring her working ensemble of Alex Wintz (guitar), Miki Yamanaka (piano), Rick Rosato (bass), and Jimmy Macbride (drums) with bass clarinetist Lucas Pino on one track.

Song titles such as “#MeToo”, “Nasty Women Grab Back“, and “Females Are Strong as Hell“, might make you think that music has a strident quality. Many of the songs have great power but Ms. Coss wants to entertain and educate. While you’re grooving to the great rhythm section or enjoying Wintz’s delightful guitar solos or Ms. Yamanaka’s foundational piano, the leader wants you to think, wants you to react to the issues she’s presenting that you will begin to take action and demand better behavior throughout the country.

Sitting and listening to the music, one hears the influence of Charles Mingus (whose song titles made you sit up) and the power of Art Blakey and Max Roach. Those artists and others were also fighting for the cause of equality.  Sometimes, their music rankled listeners but, more often than not, the sounds excited those who listened and, perhaps, even made them change attitudes for the better. Ms. Coss’s lovely ballad “Choices” is filled with emotion while “Mr. President” starts slowly with a somber melody over martial drums.  Soon, the rhythm section kicks into high gear and Ms. Coss’s tenor sax pushes them forward.  “Feminist AF” is a blues – no surprise there – that hints at both John Coltrane and Wayne without imitating either one.  The afore-mentioned “Nasty Women…” features the leader on soprano and, while the rhythm section has some “bite”, the solos soar, especially Wintz’s rippling guitar lines.

Besides her work on the bandstand, Roxy Coss is the founder and director of WIJO (Women in Jazz Organization) – their Mission Statement is quite clear:

“WOMEN IN JAZZ ORGANIZATION INTENDS TO HELP LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD IN JAZZ, SO THAT WOMEN AND NON-BINARY PEOPLE HAVE AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN AND CONTRIBUTE TO JAZZ, LEADING TO AN IMPROVED AND MORE RICH, DIVERSE, AND SUCCESSFUL ARTFORM. THE ORGANIZATION IS COMMITTED TO HONORING BLACK AMERICANS AS THE CREATORS OF JAZZ.“