jazz2love

Album:  Being Artist:  Chris Rottmayer Label:  Shifting Paradigm Website:  chrisrottmayer.com Freelance jazz artist, composer, educator, and pianist Chris Rottmayer releases his fourth recording Being .  His recording is comprised of all original compositions, written as part of a study of the jazz pianist Mulgrew Miller, and Miller's materials with the Woody Shaw Quintet. Rottmayer calls Madison, Wisconsin his home where is a Lecturer of Music Theory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. and where his mentors were instrumental in connecting him with acoustic bassist Rufus Reid, who collaborated often with Miller. Reid joins Rottmayer on Being along with Russ Johnson on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Matt Endres on drums.  Rottmayer travels between jam-inspired arrangements like "On The Street Where Woody Lives" and "Re-United" and elegant scores like "Pigalle" and "Pont Neuf."  The two former tracks are part of the Miller study, and the two ...

Album:  Being Artist:  Chris Rottmayer Label:  Shifting Paradigm Website:  chrisrottmayer.com Being , the fourth release from pianist and leader Chris Rottmayer, is a compilation of original music, written by Rottmayer as part of a study of jazz pianist Mulgrew Miller and his recordings with the Woody Shaw Quintet.  With that in mind, the music has a statuesque hard bop parlance reminiscent of McCoy Tyner and an intimate jazz club flare reflective of Art Tatum. Five compositions are reflections of the city of Paris, France, such as “Pigalle," which is driven by a slow strutting bass line played by Rufus Reid as Rottmayer's keys drizzle gently across the smooth melodic soundscape.  The tune leaves the listener with an impression of the famous former red-light district of Pigalle, renown for its dancehalls and venues of entertainment, as being relaxing and peaceful.   “Châtelet,” another impression of Paris, projects the bustling activity around the Pari...

Album:  Sunday at Pilars Artist:  Chris Rottmayer Website:  https://chrisrottmayer.com Pianist/songwriter Chris Rottmayer's studio recording, Sunday at Pilars celebrates the atmosphere that his quartet created during their Sunday gigs at Pilars Martini in Winter Garden, Florida.  Rottmayer's quartet performed at the club regularly on Sunday afternoons between 2015 and 2018.   Performing a handful of American Popular Songbook tunes, jazz standards, and originals by Rottmayer, the band plays in a straight-ahead jazz fashion with sprigs of improvised excursions scattered throughout the tracks.  The music is conducive to dining club settings, adorned in classic jazz trimmings.   Rottmayer's original number "Trocadero" is coated in a smooth jazz film as his keys imprint whimsical flickers while drummer Walt Hubbard and bassist Charlie Silva stoke a torchlight shimmer.  Track after track threads into one another like a seamless story, traveling fro...

Album:  So In Love Artists:  Ashley Locheed and Chris Rottmayer Label: Timucua Arts Foundation Website: www.chrisrottmayer.com Bandcamp: https://chrisrottmayer.bandcamp.com/album/so-in-love Clad with smooth swing sensibilities, the music of vocalist Ashley Locheed and pianist Chris Rottmayer revitalizes traditional cafe blues chirping on their latest release So In Love from Timucua Arts Foundation.  Comprised of original arrangements on an assortment of jazz standards and classic pop tunes, the pair are joined by electric bass player Chuck Archard and drummer Keith Wilson, whose untimely passing inspired the duo to dedicate the CD to Wilson's memory. Plunging into the recording, the team's rendition of Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight" is coated in silky aesthetics helmed by Rottmayer's reflective musings while the feline softness in Locheed's register adds a buttery polish to the track that is of the elk of legendary jazz crooners.  Her vocal elasticity...