Claudio Roditi | Simpatico (Coming Feb. 9th, 2010)
RESONANCE RECORDS SET TO RELEASE SIMPATICO
BY VERSATILE TRUMPET MASTER
CLAUDIO RODITI ON FEBRUARY 9
Roditi’s New CD Follows His 2009 Grammy-Nominated Brazilliance X 4
In the wake of his acclaimed and Grammy-nominated (in the “Best Latin Jazz Album” category) 2009 Resonance Records release, Brazilliance x 4, trumpet/flugelhorn player Claudio Roditi has created Simpatico,
another tuneful showcase for his patented blend of Brazilian samba and
bossa nova with straight-ahead jazz. But where last year’s recording
included works by such Brazilian legends as João Donato, Durval
Ferreira, and Johnny Alf, Simpatico spotlights both Roditi’s playing and his composing talents.
“To me,” Roditi remarks, “the main difference of this album from
everything else I have done is that for the very first time these are
all my compositions, all twelve of them. There are some new pieces,
some a little older, but these are mostly things I haven’t recorded,
and some of them I haven’t played live.”
There also are some other new wrinkles on Simpatico.
For instance, on “Piccolo Blues,” Roditi plays an instrument that is
relatively new to him and quite uncommon in jazz, the tiny piccolo
trumpet. “It’s about a year and a half that I’ve been fooling around
with the piccolo trumpet,” he notes. “It’s a hard instrument to get a
nice sound on, but little by little I’ve been learning and playing it
more and more. I wrote this song in a comfortable range for the piccolo
trumpet, and it’s my ‘introduction.’ In other words, I was introducing
myself to the instrument with this song.”
And while most of the tracks on Simpatico
find him in quintet settings, Roditi revisits “Slow Fire,” a tune he
first recorded back in 1989, but this time with a lush orchestral
backing created by Kuno Schmid. “He is a phenomenal arranger and he
created a different feeling for this song, which put us is a new
direction. And Duduka is playing very, very differently on the drums
than on the original recording.” Of course, Roditi is referring to
Duduka Da Fonseca, his fellow Brazilian and drummer of choice for more
than two decades.
Brazilian pianist Helio Alves, another frequent Roditi colleague who
has appeared on a number of the trumpeter’s previous recordings,
notably Brazilliance x 4,
demonstrates once again that he is equally at home with both Brazilian
and straight-ahead jazz genres. John Lee is another longtime
collaborator and the reason Roditi has used the electric bass on so
many of his projects, including Simpatico.
“It’s not about the electric bass,” he explains. “It’s about John Lee.
It so happens that he plays electric bass. We’ve been associated since
our days with Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation Orchestra and I like the
way he plays the music, period. So the fact that he chooses to play
electric bass is, to me, irrelevant.”
On three tracks, Roditi is joined by the brilliant, up-and-coming
trombonist Michael Dease. “This is the first time that he has recorded
with me. Mike plays beautifully on all three songs, but his solo on
‘Blues for Ronni’ is especially great. He’s a very talented musician”
The other quintet tunes feature guitarist Romero Lubambo, who, along
with Duduka Da Fonseca, is one third of the superb Brazilian combo,
Trio Da Paz, “It’s the first time that I’ve used Romero on an album.
He’s one of the masters of the acoustic guitar. Romero also plays one
tune on the electric guitar, ‘A Dream for Kristen,’ but he gets a
completely different sound. It’s so warm that it sounds almost like an
acoustic guitar.”
Claudio Roditi was born on May 28, 1946, in Rio de Janeiro and began
his musical studies at the age of five. As a teenager he discovered the
music of trumpet giants like Louis Armstrong, Harry James, Dizzy
Gillespie, and Miles Davis, thanks to an American uncle’s record
collection. At twenty he was a finalist in the International Jazz
Competition in Vienna, then in 1970 moved to Boston to study at the
Berklee School of Music. By 1976 Roditi had arrived on the New York
jazz scene, and over the years worked alongside such jazz luminaries as
Mario Bauzá, Paquito D’Rivera, Joe Henderson, Herbie Mann, Tito Puente,
Charlie Rouse and McCoy Tyner.
In 1989 Roditi became a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation
Orchestra, and since then he has toured and recorded with The
JazzMasters and The Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band, Gillespie
tribute groups led by musical director Slide Hampton. A gifted musical
storyteller with a vast improviser’s imagination, Roditi’s playing is
characterized by its essential lyricism and warmth. “Claudio doesn’t
even try to be original and he is,” Paquito D’Rivera has observed,
expressing a widely held opinion within the jazz community “He is such
a sincere player. He doesn’t play to try to impress anybody, he plays
just music. … I learn a lot from his way of approaching music, the
honest way to play the music. The way he plays is so noble.”
“I’m grateful to George Klabin and Resonance Records for giving me the
opportunity to do a project like this, that I have been ‘rehearsing’ to
do for years, trying to accept my own compositions,” Roditi concludes.
“I’ve finally, after so many years, started to realize that I have some
good ones and so, for me this is a milestone.”
CLAUDIO RODITI- SIMPATICO
Resonance Records / February 9, 2010
another tuneful showcase for his patented blend of Brazilian samba and
bossa nova with straight-ahead jazz. But where last year’s recording
included works by such Brazilian legends as João Donato, Durval
Ferreira, and Johnny Alf, Simpatico spotlights both Roditi’s playing and his composing talents.
“To me,” Roditi remarks, “the main difference of this album from
everything else I have done is that for the very first time these are
all my compositions, all twelve of them. There are some new pieces,
some a little older, but these are mostly things I haven’t recorded,
and some of them I haven’t played live.”
There also are some other new wrinkles on Simpatico.
For instance, on “Piccolo Blues,” Roditi plays an instrument that is
relatively new to him and quite uncommon in jazz, the tiny piccolo
trumpet. “It’s about a year and a half that I’ve been fooling around
with the piccolo trumpet,” he notes. “It’s a hard instrument to get a
nice sound on, but little by little I’ve been learning and playing it
more and more. I wrote this song in a comfortable range for the piccolo
trumpet, and it’s my ‘introduction.’ In other words, I was introducing
myself to the instrument with this song.”
And while most of the tracks on Simpatico
find him in quintet settings, Roditi revisits “Slow Fire,” a tune he
first recorded back in 1989, but this time with a lush orchestral
backing created by Kuno Schmid. “He is a phenomenal arranger and he
created a different feeling for this song, which put us is a new
direction. And Duduka is playing very, very differently on the drums
than on the original recording.” Of course, Roditi is referring to
Duduka Da Fonseca, his fellow Brazilian and drummer of choice for more
than two decades.
Brazilian pianist Helio Alves, another frequent Roditi colleague who
has appeared on a number of the trumpeter’s previous recordings,
notably Brazilliance x 4,
demonstrates once again that he is equally at home with both Brazilian
and straight-ahead jazz genres. John Lee is another longtime
collaborator and the reason Roditi has used the electric bass on so
many of his projects, including Simpatico.
“It’s not about the electric bass,” he explains. “It’s about John Lee.
It so happens that he plays electric bass. We’ve been associated since
our days with Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation Orchestra and I like the
way he plays the music, period. So the fact that he chooses to play
electric bass is, to me, irrelevant.”
On three tracks, Roditi is joined by the brilliant, up-and-coming
trombonist Michael Dease. “This is the first time that he has recorded
with me. Mike plays beautifully on all three songs, but his solo on
‘Blues for Ronni’ is especially great. He’s a very talented musician”
The other quintet tunes feature guitarist Romero Lubambo, who, along
with Duduka Da Fonseca, is one third of the superb Brazilian combo,
Trio Da Paz, “It’s the first time that I’ve used Romero on an album.
He’s one of the masters of the acoustic guitar. Romero also plays one
tune on the electric guitar, ‘A Dream for Kristen,’ but he gets a
completely different sound. It’s so warm that it sounds almost like an
acoustic guitar.”
Claudio Roditi was born on May 28, 1946, in Rio de Janeiro and began
his musical studies at the age of five. As a teenager he discovered the
music of trumpet giants like Louis Armstrong, Harry James, Dizzy
Gillespie, and Miles Davis, thanks to an American uncle’s record
collection. At twenty he was a finalist in the International Jazz
Competition in Vienna, then in 1970 moved to Boston to study at the
Berklee School of Music. By 1976 Roditi had arrived on the New York
jazz scene, and over the years worked alongside such jazz luminaries as
Mario Bauzá, Paquito D’Rivera, Joe Henderson, Herbie Mann, Tito Puente,
Charlie Rouse and McCoy Tyner.
In 1989 Roditi became a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation
Orchestra, and since then he has toured and recorded with The
JazzMasters and The Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band, Gillespie
tribute groups led by musical director Slide Hampton. A gifted musical
storyteller with a vast improviser’s imagination, Roditi’s playing is
characterized by its essential lyricism and warmth. “Claudio doesn’t
even try to be original and he is,” Paquito D’Rivera has observed,
expressing a widely held opinion within the jazz community “He is such
a sincere player. He doesn’t play to try to impress anybody, he plays
just music. … I learn a lot from his way of approaching music, the
honest way to play the music. The way he plays is so noble.”
“I’m grateful to George Klabin and Resonance Records for giving me the
opportunity to do a project like this, that I have been ‘rehearsing’ to
do for years, trying to accept my own compositions,” Roditi concludes.
“I’ve finally, after so many years, started to realize that I have some
good ones and so, for me this is a milestone.”
CLAUDIO RODITI- SIMPATICO
Resonance Records / February 9, 2010
For further information on this and other Resonance Records releases, visit www.ResonanceRecords.org