Home » Jazz Musicians » Fabian Almazan

Fabian Almazan

Cuban-American pianist/composer Fabian Almazan found his musical roots as a child in Havana where he first became involved in the classical piano tradition.  Most recently, Almazan can be heard in such films as Harriet, Chi-Raq, Red Tails and Miracle at St Anna.

During the completion of his jazz piano bachelor's degree at the Manhattan School of Music, Almazan immersed himself in the realm of orchestral composition studying instrumentation and orchestration with Mr. Giampaolo Bracali.

Almazan is the founder and director of Biophilia Records. Biophilia means "an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems.” In addition to creating meaningful and imaginative music, Biophilia Records artists are united by a common interest in having a positive impact on the environment and our communities. Biophilia artists collaborate with organizations that specialize in conservation, sustainability and outreach initiatives, regularly volunteering hands-on in community events. 

As an environmentalist and naturalist, Almazan travelled back to his birthplace where he made field recordings of endemic Cuban birds which were then Incorporated into "This Land Abounds With Life", Almazan's most recent and 5th album as a leader. He is the founder and director of Biophilia Records and has worked diligently towards ensuring a continued dialogue of awareness concerning music and environmental justice.

As a performer, Almazan has developed a personal voice through the electric manipulation of the acoustic piano in live and studio settings. He has toured his music extensively as well as accompanied artists such as Linda May Han Oh, Terence Blanchard, Gretchen Parlato, John Hollenbeck, Mark Guiliana, Dave Douglass, Avishai Cohen and Ambrose Akinmusire among others.

Awards include 2 Grammy nominations, the SWR New Jazz Meeting commission, the Copland Fund, the Jerome Fund for Emerging Composers Award, the Jazz Gallery Residency, Rockerfeller Brothers Residency, Cintas Foundation Award in Composition and the Sundance Composers’ Lab.


Tags

1
Album Review

Anthony Branker & Imagine: What Place Can Be for Us? - A Suite in Ten Movements

Read "What Place Can Be for Us? - A Suite in Ten Movements" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


L'avventuroso post-bop del compositore Anthony Branker, ben espresso dall'album Beauty Within del quintetto Imagine, trova nuovi e più articolati sviluppi in questo What Place Can Be for Us?. Il gruppo conferma il chitarrista Pete McCann e la coppia Fabian Almazan e Linda May Han Oh ampliandosi fino a un medio organico con alcuni dei massimi giovani strumentisti di New York: il trombettista Philip Dizack, i sassofonisti Walter Smith III e Remy Le Boeuf, il batterista Donald Edwards e la vocalist ...

3
Liner Notes

Adam Larson: Listen With Your Eyes

Read "Adam Larson: Listen With Your Eyes" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Listen with your eyes. Open your ears and look. What tenor saxophonist Adam Larson has to offer here is something truly extraordinary. With horn in hand he takes us on a journey, an unforgettable trip through his wiring that's as daring as it is direct, as complex as it is approachable, and as dynamic as can be. To see and hear is to believe.Serving as Larson's debut for Ropeadope and his fifth record to date, Listen With Your ...

5
Liner Notes

Anthony Branker: What Place Can Be for Us? - A Suite in Ten Movements

Read "Anthony Branker: What Place Can Be for Us? - A Suite in Ten Movements" reviewed by Michael Ambrosino


Ma Rainey channeled music as her ritual of “singing to understand life." Congressman John Lewis leveraged music towards the “good trouble" he created fighting for civil rights in an uncivil land. Anthony Branker understands music as the calculus of his life's work—the art of weaving words and sound into transcendent tapestries that explore the rich, complex, and nuanced aspects of intolerance, beauty, prejudice, spirituality, gender, equality and social justice. The composite of this artistry exists within the remarkable ...

18
Album Review

Terence Blanchard featuring The E-Collective: Absence

Read "Absence" reviewed by Chris May


Trumpeter Terence Blanchard and the E-Collective's Absence is dedicated to saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, who for health reasons has been obliged to retire from performing, at least temporarily. Some people celebrating their 88th birthday, as Shorter did on August 25 2021, might not welcome being the dedicatee of an album with such a title. They might consider a more appropriate choice of words to be Presence or even I'm Feeling Fine Thanks For Asking. But you never know with ...

3
Album Review

Joshua Crumbly: Rise

Read "Rise" reviewed by Geno Thackara


Joshua Crumbly and his bass have logged a good few miles learning from a respectable number of fellow players (Victor Bailey, Terence Blanchard, Kamasi Washington and more) in his fairly young career, and it shows—his debut may not be as wildly eclectic as it could have been with such a colorful history to build on, but then it's not specifically meant to be. Rise is more about portraying emotions and inner thoughts, and the variety of players and tones here ...

3
Album Review

Dave Douglas: Dizzy Atmosphere: Dizzy Gillespie At Zero Gravity

Read "Dizzy Atmosphere: Dizzy Gillespie At Zero Gravity" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala


Chi si aspetta da questo disco un omaggio fedele all'approccio umoristico e pirotecnico di Dizzy Gillespie, non conosce Dave Douglas. Il trombettista, che ha compiuto lo scorso marzo cinquantasette anni, ha mostrato nelle frequenti dediche ai protagonisti della storia del jazz la propria propensione del tutto personale a tale pratica: lo ha fatto tra l'altro con Mary Lou Williams, Wayne Shorter, Booker Little. Nello splendido Devotion, pubblicato lo scorso anno, in trio con Uri Caine e Andrew Cyrille, c'erano pure ...

11
Album Review

Dave Douglas: Dizzy Atmosphere: Dizzy Gillespie At Zero Gravity

Read "Dizzy Atmosphere: Dizzy Gillespie At Zero Gravity" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


The distinctive trumpet of Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993), with the idiosyncratic upward angle of its bell, is transformed into a starship on the cover of Dave Douglas' Dizzy Atmosphere: Dizzy Gillespie in Zero Gravity, seemingly soaring above the stratosphere, in Earth orbit. Douglas has a history of nodding to past greats: pianist Mary Lou Williams on Soul On Soul (Sony Legacy, 2000), saxophonist Wayne Shorter on Stargazer (Arabesque, 1997), and on a pair of Riverside discs that explored the music of ...

Read more articles
2

Award / Grant

BlueNote/ArtistShare Submits Its First Albums For Consideration In The 57th Grammy Awards

BlueNote/ArtistShare Submits Its First Albums For Consideration In The 57th Grammy Awards

Source: Prawit Austin Siriwat

New records from Blue Note/ArtistShare artists Fabian Almazan and Jon Cowherd, as well as ArtistShare artist Steve Wiest to be considered for Grammy Awards This year ArtistShare has submitted the first recordings from the new BlueNote/ArtistShare label, a partnership forged by ArtistShare Founder and CEO Brian Camelio, Bruce Lundvall, and Don Was, President of Blue Note Records. Blue Note/ArtistShare is the first collaboration between a crowdfunding model and a major label. Bruce Lundvall (Chairman Emeritus of Blue Note) refers to ...

2

Recording

Blue Note / ArtistShare Launches Fabian Almazan's Fan-Funded Rhizome CD Project

Blue Note / ArtistShare Launches Fabian Almazan's Fan-Funded Rhizome CD Project

Source: Brian Camelio

BLUE NOTE/ARTISTSHARE LAUNCHES FABIAN ALMAZAN’S “RHIZOME” CD PROJECT - THE FIRST FAN-FUNDED RECORDING PROJECT FROM THE NEW BLUE NOTE/ARTISTSHARE LABEL THE VERY FIRST ALBUM TO BE RELEASED UNDER THE HISTORIC NEW JOINT LABEL BLUE NOTE/ARTISTSHARE WILL FEATURE YOUNG PIANIST/COMPOSER FABIAN ALMAZAN’S FAN-FUNDED “RHIZOME” CD Almazan is joined by Linda Oh on bass; Henry Cole on drums; singer/guitarist Camila Meza; Sara Caswell and Tomoko Omura on violin; Karen Waltuch on viola; and Noah Hoffeld on cello Cuban-born American pianist/composer Fabian Almazan ...

55

Recording

Guitarist/Composer Nils Weinhold Releases New CD "Shapes" Featuring Fabian Almazan and Luques Curtis.

Guitarist/Composer Nils Weinhold Releases New CD "Shapes" Featuring Fabian Almazan and Luques Curtis.

Source: Two for the Show Media

Nils Weinhold grew up in Bad Sachsa, a small village in the Harz mountains of Germany and started playing the guitar at the age of nine. In Germany he took lessons with Andreas Jäger and German jazz guitar legend Prof. Michael Sagmeister, before attending the Conservatory of Amsterdam in 2004, where he studied Jazz Guitar with Maarten van der Grinten, Martijn van Iterson and Jesse van Ruller. In addition to his jazz studies he studied Classical guitar, under the instruction ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Echoes Of The Inner...

Blue Note Records
2024

buy

What Place Can Be for...

Origin Records
2023

buy

Earth Matters

Cool It! Records
2022

buy

City Counterpoint

Stonefruits Recordings
2022

buy

Absence

Blue Note Records
2021

buy

Dizzy Atmosphere:...

Greenleaf Music
2020

buy

The Door of No Return

From: What Place Can Be for Us? - A...
By Fabian Almazan

The Elf

From: Earth Matters
By Fabian Almazan

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.