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Josh Rager

Josh is a pianist, arranger, composer, and teacher based in Montreal, Canada. Throughout his 15 year career he has performed extensively in Japan, Europe and North America. In 2005 he was nominated for the Prix du Festival at the Montreal International Jazz festival. In 2007 he played at Carnegie Hall with Nikky Yanofsky appearing also on her Juno nominated debut DVD/CD “Ella…I swing of thee”. In 2009 he received a commission from The European Broadcasting Union to compose a jazz suite for two pianos entitled “Menuet and Duo” which was recorded by CBC at its premiere in Montreal at Pollack Hall and broadcast internationally. His most recent CD features new original music for nonet and will be released in 2017 on the label Bent River Records. Currently, Josh is assistant professor in the jazz specialization at Concordia university, Montreal. Some of the names that Josh has performed and/or recorded with include: Ingrid Jensen, Walt Weiskopf, Donny McCaslin, Joe Morrello, Pat Labarbera, Kevin Dean, Rane Lee, and Dawn Tyler Watson.

Stephen Menold: On the Night Bus

Read "On the Night Bus" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 14, 2020

Stephen Menold's ride On the Night Bus is for the most part an amiable and pleasant trip, one wherein the Canadian-born bassist's quintet revisits a time when bop reigned supreme and giants whose names are forever enshrined in the historic annals of jazz were alive and swinging. While Menold says his series of ten original compositions represents a portrait of his home base of Montreal, it could as well be an homage to those pathfinders who raised bop to its ...

Album Review

Josh Rager: Dreams And Other Stories

Read "Dreams And Other Stories" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
September 22, 2018

Montreal's Juno Award-nominated pianist, Josh Rager, has assembled an all star quintet for his fourth album as a leader, Dreams And Other Stories. Sandwiching five of his own superb compositions between the disc's opener, the Rodgers and Hart jewel “Spring is Here," and the wrap-up, Olivier Messiaen's “O Sacrum Convivium," he creates a cohesive and vivacious jazz statement, in the mode of those Herbie Hancock albums from the mid to late 1960s. The Rodgers and Hart opener explores ...

Interview

Josh Rager, in His Own Words

Source: Jazzblog.ca by Peter Hum
November 27, 2009

The Gloucester-raised, Montreal-based pianist Josh Rager has previously appeared in the blog on several occasions, proving his way with words as the interviewee here and here, for example, and as the incisive commenter, here. Recently Rager decided that he didn't need my half-baked ideas as points of departure anymore, and he launched his own X...Y...Jazz blog. Rager's not even 10 posts into his blogging career, but he's already defined one niche -- sharing what he knows about playing ...
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“Top 10 of 2012…The disc’s focus on solo piano and trio tracks makes clearer than ever Rager’s stature as a player and composer of considerable substance and feeling.” Peter Hum, JazzBlog.ca Press quotes about Josh’s CD Time and Again ***1/2 Josh Rager is one of the new breed of Quebec musicians offering up a sweet, smoky, fast-paced brand of fusion and uptempo jazz. Paul Marck, See magazine, December 24, 2008 ****Montreal pianist-composer Josh Rager's music encompasses a lot of sounds from the acoustic jazz oeuvre of the past 40 years. Karen Plato, Vancouver sun December 17, 2008