Home » Jazz Musicians » Joe Policastro
Joe Policastro
He leads the Joe Policastro Trio, and the group has released three albums featuring his writing, arranging, and performing: West Side Story Suite For Jazz Trio (2013), POPS! (2016), and Screen Sounds (2017). He also leads and co-leads the Gerry Mulligan tribute ensembles, Jeru, the Mulligan Mosaics Big Band, and the Mulligan Mulligan Mosaics Nonet for which he has extensively written and arranged. As composer/arranger, his work can be heard on recordings by numerous artists including Ira Sullivan and the Rob Parton Big Band.
As an educator, he has been a Ravinia Jazz Mentor, a Lecturer of Jazz Studies at DePaul University, and he is currently on faculty at Morton College, the Chicago Academy for the Arts, and the Midwest Young Artists Conservatory. He is happy to make Chicago his home along with his wife, Marie, and his children, Ava and Anthony, and his dog, Fritz.
Tags
Kevin Fort: Perspectives
by Edward Blanco
Pianist and composer Kevin Fort follows his extraordinary debut, Red Gold (CD Baby, 2014), with another tip of the hat to jazz standards and the modern tradition; Perspectives is a musical package nicely filled with new arrangements of six classics and four new originals, performed by a standard piano trio. For more than twenty years an in-demand player in Chicago's talent-rich jazz scene, Fort is also an educator, currently lecturing at the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music.
read moreJoe Policastro Trio: Nothing Here Belongs
by Jerome Wilson
The Joe Policastro Trio is a working band that has been playing together in Chicago area clubs for almost ten years. This CD reflects that history in how the three musicians play off each others' twists and turns with a near-telepathic rapport. Guitarist Dave Miller darts and swoops with cool assurance while bassist Policastro and drummer Mikel Avery keep the rhythms sounding relaxed and natural even when abruptly switching tempos within songs. The set consists mostly of Policastro ...
read moreJoe Policastro Trio: Nothing Here Belongs
by Dan Bilawsky
Everything belongs here on Nothing Here Belongs, the first Joe Policastro Trio album to focus primarily on original material. The three previous outings from this Chicago-based outfit sold themselves with a pliable approach to covers. On West Side Story Suite (Self Produced, 2013) it was an expansive brush with Bernstein; with Pops! (Self Produced, 2016) the band tackled popular music, from Burt Bacharach to The Pixies; and through Screen Sounds (Jerujazz Records, 2017) the group visited songs of the silver ...
read moreJoe Policastro Trio: Screen Sounds
by Dan Bilawsky
There are always new wrinkles to be found in the familiar. That's a philosophical stance that seems to serve the Joe Policastro Trio well. This Chicago-based outfit's debut album--West Side Story Suite (Self Produced, 2013)--served as a distillation and expansion on Bernstein's masterpiece, turning Broadway on its head; Pops! (Self Produced, 2016) referenced both the venue that served as the band's birthplace and the titular musical strain, presenting newly drafted takes on the music of The Pixies, Neil Young, Stevie ...
read moreJazz this week: Erin Bode, Joe Policastro Trio, "Swing Symphony," Peter Martin, Jeremy Davenport, Dweezil Zappa, and more
Source:
St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
This week's calendar of live jazz and creative music features jazz played by a variety of ensembles, from intimate duos and trios to a full symphony orchestra and big band teaming up to present the St. Louis premiere of a large-scale work from trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Let's go to the highlights... Wednesday, May 2 Singer Erin Bode returns to Jazz at the Bistro for the first of two nights of performances, and the weekly Grand Center Jazz Crawl" will feature ...
read more
Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune has praised Policastro for the "ample rhythmic propulsion" of his bass playing and noted his "exquisitely voiced" and "shimmering" writing/arranging.
"[Policastro] sings on his instrument." - Michael Steinman, Jazz Lives