Saxophonist Joe Santa Maria and Bassist David Tranchina’s OBLIQUE RHYME is an eclectic, innovative, improvisatory album featuring Gary Fukushima and Colin Woodford

Although saxophonist JOE SANTA MARIA and bassist DAVID TRANCHINA are the prime movers behind OBLIQUE RHYME, the album is a collective endeavor that includes pianist GARY FUKUSHIMA and drummer COLIN WOODFORD. Each musician contributed compositions to this compelling new project of all original music.

The band is a powerhouse team of top Los Angeles-based musicians. They are in-demand sidemen, band leaders, and recording artists in their own right. Santa Maria has performed with top names like Vinny Golia, Kim Richmond, Roy McCurdy, Joe La Barbera, and Bill Holman. Tranchina has written music for animation and feature films and has performed with Bennie Maupin, Bobby Bradford, Dwight Trible, Larry Carlton, Louis Cole, Genevieve Artadi, and Jeff Parker. Fukushima is not only an in-demand keyboard player who has performed with many of the top names in jazz, like Mike Stern, Ndugu Chancler, Walter Smith III, Anthony Wilson, and Jeff Clayton, he is also a highly regarded jazz journalist and a professor at several So Cal universities. Woodford was the recipient of the Downbeat Magazine Outstanding Performance Award and has written for a wide array of ensembles from string quartet to big band to solo saxophone.

The bandmates are old friends who have been playing together for many years in different configurations. After many discussions about their philosophies and approach to music, they finally decided to make an album together. Tranchina says, “We set out to make something beautiful and unique for OBLIQUE RHYME. We’re all multifaceted musicians who have played in a wide variety of styles and have different perspectives on music, but it all blends beautifully when we play together.” Santa Maria adds, “We’re not interested in just showing off our chops. When you listen to the great jazz artists, although they’re technically brilliant, it’s their musicality and soulfulness that express something deeper and more personal. That’s what we wanted for this album.”

Although OBLIQUE RHYME touches on a variety of styles, like funk and blues, the album has a very contemporary edge. It opens with the Santa Maria composition “War Crimes.” Santa Maria says, “I like to capture my favorite elements of Ornette Coleman’s music, and I wanted to bring an angular, modern funk to this piece. I think it has a lot of color, although it’s a bit ambiguous harmonically. I shifted around minor scale fragments to create an agitated texture.” He decided on the name of the composition because he felt the emotional tone of the music reflects the state of the world today.

The music changes pace with “Hidden Lake.” Composed by Tranchina, he named it for the street where he grew up in Forestville, Sonoma County. The tune has a gentle, idyllic quality that captures how Tranchina remembers the hippie enclave. He says, “When I was in high school, there wasn’t a lot to do there, so we often just sat on the banks of the Russian River. I wanted to strip away all the over-complicated stuff and get to the core of what I loved about the place.”

Santa Maria wrote “Mood of Mind” as part of a series of compositions he calls ‘camp songs,’ a group of fairly short pieces written to reflect his love of the natural world. The tune has a spacious, philosophical vibe that reflects the calm, meditative state of mind he experiences while walking out in nature.

Fukushima wrote “Sum Thymes” specifically for this album. The piece is very abstract and avant-garde, giving the musicians space to freely improvise. But it all hangs together with the piano and drums creating complex textures while the sax and bass weave around each other, carrying the melodic line.

“Prism” is another of Santa Maria’s camp songs. He creates a mysterious sound using layered polyrhythms and triplets that move around in various groupings.

Tranchina wrote “Ambient Ambiance” as part of a challenge a friend posted online. The exercise was to write a song every day for a month. Written in 5/4, the piece has a surrealistic feel that is enhanced by the almost eerie sounds Fukushima creates on the synthesizer and Fender Rhodes. The simple melody gives ample space for Santa Maria to improvise.

“This Must Be for You” was written by Woodford. The solos by Santa Maria and Fukushima have a noirish ambience. Woodford dedicated the tune to Herbie Hancock.

Santa Maria plays alto sax on his “Caricature.” He wrote the tune without harmony, only melody. He explains, “The composition is about going to a carnival and having somebody draw a picture of you that looks nothing like you, or it's exposing features of you that you don't even notice yourself. It's supposed to entertain other people and maybe embarrass you a little bit. I wanted to capture that feeling.”

The album closes with Tranchina’s “Picking Up the Pieces.” It features Santa Maria’s warm, bluesy tenor. Santa Maria says, “For me, the song has many classic elements. It reminds me of a Wayne Shorter composition. It’s a great song for the tenor because it allows me to try and capture the classic tenor sound.”

Tranchina and Santa Maria set out to create music that stirs a listener’s imagination through the beauty of free improvisation. Although the band members are all technical masters, they didn’t want to just rely on their superb chops to draw in listeners. Instead, they created music that’s highly emotional and imagistic, creating a soundscape that’s also visually stimulating.

L.A. guitarist Max Walker announces virtuosic and exploratory full-length, Chronostasis

Chronostasis is the second album from Los Angeles-based guitarist Max Walker. The seven original compositions are reflections on Walker’s move to Los Angeles from his home in Seattle. The album contemplates the role of time both in life and music and displays an exciting rhythmic audacity. Constantly shifting pulses, metric modulations, and poly-rhythms distort the lister's sense of time much like it becomes distorted when moving between chapters in life.

Walker’s primary influences in jazz and rock are on full display all across Chronostasis. In particular, listeners will note the impact of guitar pioneers such as Allan Holdsworth, Tim Miller, and Ben Monder. Walker’s compositional skill is also showcased throughout the album. Moments of spontaneity transition seamlessly into carefully crafted musical passages.

Chronostasis also features the talents of drummer Remy Morritt, bassist Tim Carey, saxophonist and flutist Rex Gregory, and pianist Matt Williams. The album is teeming with electrifying and virtuosic moments from both individual soloists and the ensemble as a whole.

Chronostasis serves as both an introduction to Walker’s life in Los Angeles and a goodbye to his life in Seattle. Most of all, this album is about the transient moments between two major chapters in one's life, where time almost seems to stand still. The final result is an entirely unique project that engages its audience from beginning to end.

Dan Rosenboom, Joshua White, Billy Mohler & Shawn Baltazor Drop Surprise End-Of-Year Bootleg Album

The Left Edge is a bold, raw document of creative freedom, captured live by trumpeter Dan Rosenboom and his all-star ensemble — keyboardist Joshua White, bassist Billy Mohler, and drummer Shawn Baltazor—at Vine in Long Beach, CA. Bootlegged by Derek Turner on a handheld recorder, the two 40-minute sets of fully improvised music pulses with visceral energy, unfiltered rawness, and an undeniable sense of immediacy. With no safety net, the quartet pushes the boundaries of jazz and experimental music, forging new pathways with each unpredictable twist and turn. It's a thrilling, untamed listening experience that lays bare the unspoken connection between musicians in the heat of the moment. The Left Edge isn’t just an album—it’s an invitation to the edge of sound itself.

Pianist/Composer Zack Clarke Releases "Plunge," A Multi-Stylistic Array of Pianistic and Electronic Inspiration

Veteran pianist and composer Zack Clarke is no stranger to the avant jazz world, with three critically successful releases on Clean Feed Records and his newest record, Plunge, is a culmination of many styles, a braiding of various threads that run through his previous work.

All About Jazz says that Clarke “possesses an arsenal of ultra-modern concepts” but Plunge takes that ultra-modernity even further, dropping heavy hints of early Warp Records artists like Squarepusher and Aphex Twin as well as the futuristic funk and fusion of Herbie Hancock and Craig Taborn. “Jazz started as a type of dance music. It drew in large groups of the population," Clarke says. "My aim with this record is to use key elements of various genres that resonate with a diverse group of people to create a new type of music, something that can act as a bridge between people.”

Multikultiproject says that Clarke’s music is “able to dress the most unexpected sonic coincidences into an artistic unity.” This process of combining jazz and electronic music started with his very first record Music for Headphones, an expansive IDM record that cleared the path forward for experimentation. And electroacoustic tapestries were referenced on his first Clean Feed release, Random Acts of Order which was featured on numerous best-of and top 10 lists in international jazz publications. His followup, Mesophase was acclaimed for its union of chamber music and noise: Clarke created the noise first and then transcribed and arranged it for a chamber ensemble. “I am not only interested in building my own harmonic and rhythmic language, but I take great fascination in the limitless potential of sound possible in electronic music” Clarke said.

Clarke began gigging early in life, playing everything from jazz to rock to hip hop. After studying with Danilo Perez, Jason Moran and Fred Hersch in Boston, he moved to New York and immediately joined a thriving improvised music community. He has been featured on numerous recordings and performed in festivals in the United States, Europe and South America. The idea for Plunge was to take his experience as a pianist and a member of the New York jazz scene and find a way to package it with his uncommon approach to production. “I have always believed that there is a lot of potential in the marriage of avant jazz and modern production technology that has not been tapped” Clarke says.

Plunge's harmonic palette is wide open –– often without a tonal center. Yet the record overflows with infectious melodies. Bewilderingly complex rhythms are galvanized by funky and relatable beat patterns. Plunge references EDM, rock, jazz, and hip hop and the result is an endlessly engaging work of futuristic dance music and modern composition that rewards repeated listening and will appeal to fans of everything from Pat Metheny to Frank Zappa to Flying Lotus and Amon Tobin. 

Dominican Drummer/Composer Ivanna Cuesta Releases Powerful Debut Album, "A Letter To The Earth"

The highly sought-after Dominican drummer, composer, educator, and synthesist Ivanna Cuesta Gonzalez is proud to reveal her debut album, A Letter to the Earth. This album of all original music features Gonzalez on drums and electronics, along with pianist Kris Davis, bassist Max Ridley, and tenor saxophonist Ben Solomon.

From an artist who’s been turning heads at least since her graduation from the Dominican Republic Conservatory of Music in 2015 and Berklee College of Music in 2020, A Letter to the Earth is a stunning opening salvo in service of the blue marble — our only home.

“Since I was little I always loved nature and I was surrounded by many trees, rivers, and beaches in my country, the Dominican Republic,” Gonzalez says. “But climate change is a reality, and everything that I experienced as a child has been disappearing so fast— and now, they are just memories.”

To that end, A Letter to the Earth not only keeps the memory alive; it’s a plea for humanity to reverse course, via its universal language. Eschewing any lecturing in favor of pure feeling, A Letter to the Earth is an atmospheric, evocative jaw dropper — with a cross-section of contemporary jazz’s best and brightest buoying her artistic vision.

The concept of A Letter to the Earth is a combination of free improvisation with electronic elements — all inspired by issues surrounding the dire reality of climate change.

It opens with its title track and main theme, “A Letter to the Earth,” which begins with an instrumental evocation of the elements, and gradually transitions into a haunting melody by way of Solomon. Over Davis’ piano accompaniment, his ostinato reveals itself to be the foundation of the tune — and blooms into a hopeful melody and harmony.

The shattered “Humans vs Humans” points toward humanity’s hubris, and endless zest for destructive “advancement.” “The power of technology has deprived us of our personal lives,” Gonzalez states. “[Oftentimes] there is no real bond of love or empathy between humans, but just the rush of being ‘connected.’”

As such, the intro is a combination of free improv between the sax and piano over a written melody, then progresses into a broken feel groove — leading to what Gonzalez characterizes as “the acoustic and electric fine balance between the simple and the complex.”

“Ongoing Cycles” concerns itself with cycles and their repetitions. “It can be attributed to life processes that do not always start at the right time, but do their job at the right time,” Gonzalez says astutely. “In this song, the piano introduces an idea that moves, giving the other instruments the opportunity to coexist together — thus forming a repeating cycle.”

The penultimate track, “Duality,” features an astonishing push and pull between Gonzalez and Davis, underscoring the essential yin and yang of all things under the sun. And the minute-and-change closer, “Este Lugar” — translated to “in this place,” or “on this spot” It is a message of reflection and personal thoughts about her relationship with the earth — features a heartfelt voiceover from guest Pauli Camou over Gonzalez’s glacial, droning electronics.

A Letter to the Earth can be appreciated either on a messaging level or as pure sound — after all, Gonzalez has composed music for film. “I tried to use some elements of those styles in a way that the composition can be more as a journey,” Gonzalez concludes. “[My accompanists] knew what to play and respected my vision, but also brought great ideas that elevate everything for the better.

And with that, may this heartfelt Letter find you well.