Jay Rodriguez - Your Sound: Live At Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola (2018) [Hi-Res]

“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.” – NPR “He could be breathy and insinuating on a ballad, brawny and extroverted in an up tempo.” – THE NEW YORK TIMES “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)

For this auspicious emergence, Jay brought together an exciting ensemble to address melodically intriguing, swinging repertoire with which to charm the discerning, SRO audience at Dizzy’s Club (JALC), NYC, on the night of Rosh Hashanah, 2016. He lets loose on original tunes and seldom heard standards, enlisting the great Billy Harper as second saxist with whom to weave and spar; remarkably versatile pianist Larry Willis; in-demand (one hearing tells you why) Brooklyn bassist Eric Wheeler; drummer J.T. Lewis, famed for associations with Living Colour, the trio Harriet Tubman, and actress/singer Vanessa Williams, and Billy Martin of Medeski Martin & Wood on percussion. This troupe imbues their music with drive and nuances that remain vivid beyond the moment of their creation.