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Gorka Benitez
Gorka Benitez: S
by Mark F. Turner
With warmth and a rich brown tone, Barcelona saxophonist Gorka Benitez plays with empathy and a rustic quality. The veteran musician has been at the core of Spain's jazz scene for over ten years and has seen recent stints with artists such as pianist Emilio Solla y Afines and trumpeter John McNeil. While Benitez has been known to explore the freer jazz boundaries, as on The Free Session, his new double CD recording Sólo la Verdad Es Sexy (Only the ...
read moreEmilio Solla Y Afines: Sentido
by Dan McClenaghan
Emilio Solla's music marries Argentinian tango and folklore sensibilities with American jazz and the sounds of Spain and, in the case of Llegara, Llegara, Llegara," the stunningly beautiful fifteen minute opener on Sentido , the rhythms of Uruguay.No music comes to us in a vacuum, of course, and of note here are the CDs that the sounds of Solla's latest bring to mind: Maria Schneider's recent near masterpiece, Concert in the Garden , and Wayne Shorter's much top ...
read moreEmilio Solla y Afines: Sentido
by Joshua Weiner
Every once in a while appears music of such accomplishment and beauty that it completely transcends boundaries of style or culture to become (if it is not an oxymoron) an instant classic. Sentido, the gorgeous new record by Argentinean pianist Emilio Solla and his group Afines, contains such music. Forget, for the moment, that is part of Fresh Sound's World Jazz" imprint, and that it incorporates many aspects of South American folk music; world" or no, this is simply one ...
read moreGorka Benitez: The Free Session
by AAJ Staff
The Free Session presents Basque saxophonist Gorka Benitez in a dizzying variety of stylistic approaches. These mostly short performances focus more on the leader as a composer than as an improviser. And while some of the music may indeed by characterized as free jazz, some of the pieces are through-composed, and some are urgently swinging post-bop.
Benitez offers a glimpse of himself as a tenor saxophone soloist on Diatonicism," which sounds like it could be a swinging but very abstract ...
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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson