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Rodrigo Amado
For Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, improvisation isn’t only a process of making music, but an end in itself and a cause he pursues with great passion. His long span project Lisbon Improvisation Players and other groups he formed with, for instance, Ken Filiano, Steve Adams, Dennis Gonzalez, Carlos Zíngaro, Kent Kessler, Paal Nilssen-Love, Miguel Mira or Gabriel Ferrandini, all share the same method of opening the concept of real-time composition to as many perspectives as possible.
With one foot in modern jazz and the other in free improvisation, what he likes most is to play in the jazz idiom, without any tunes or preconceived structures, but forging a work of strong structure, clear direction and deep meaning, in real-time. So, his improvisation, although not free in formal terms, is free anyhow in its strategies and in the open spectrum of possibilities it offers musicians working with him. And that ambiguity is what interests him.
Born in Lisbon in 1964, he studied saxophone since he was 17 years old. Since then, he developed an intense activity focused mainly on the Jazz and Improvised music fields. Studied briefly at the Hot Clube Music School of Lisbon and had private lessons with some of the leading jazz players in Portugal, namely Carlos Martins, Jorge Reis and Pedro Madaleno.
Some of the musicians he played or recorded with: Lou Grassi, Steve Swell, Herb Robertson, Lisle Ellis, Taylor Ho Bynum, John Hebert, Gerald Cleaver, Luis Lopes, Aaron Gonzalez, Stefan Gonzalez, Paul Dunmall, Raymond Strid, Sten Sandell, Per Zanussi, Adam Lane, Joe Giardullo, Harris Eisenstadt, Tomas Ulrich, Alex Cline, Bobby Bradford, Vinny Golia, Dominic Duval, Mike Bisio, Scott Fields, Daniel Carter, Federico Ughi, Chris Jonas, Michael Thompson, Wade Matthews, Gail Brand, Michael Attias, Andrew Drury, Sture Erikson, Rachim Ausar Sahu, Per-Ake Holmlander, Jan Roder, Elliott Levin, Mark Whitecage, Peter Epstein, Greg Moore, Phill Niblock, João Paulo Esteves da Silva, Sei Miguel, Rafael Toral, Manuel Mota, Ernesto Rodrigues, DJ Ride, Carlos Barretto, Ulrich Mitzlaff or Nuno Rebelo, among many others.
In September 2001, Amado joined brothers Pedro and Carlos Costa to start the label Clean Feed, totally devoted to record creative contemporary jazz and improvised music. Very quickly, Clean Feed found itself at the vortex of the international creative jazz scene, releasing projects that reached far beyond what was initially imagined. In 2005, Amado left the company and started his own label, “European Echoes”, focusing mostly in his own work. Since then, he is spending more and more time with his own projects, with music and photography. He also writes on a regular basis for one of the most prestigious Portuguese newspapers, Jornal Público.
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Rodrigo Amado The Bridge: Beyond The Margins
by John Sharpe
The Bridge may be one of the most potent all round units assembled by Portuguese tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado. That is saying something considering his previous alliances with collaborators as varied as multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, trumpeter Peter Evans, trombonist Jeb Bishop and drummer Chris Corsano. This time out his partners read like an extract from an international free jazz who's who: German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, American drummer Gerry Hemingway and Norwegian bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten. Beyond ...
read moreRodrigo Amado: Beyond The Margins
by Troy Dostert
The aptly titled Beyond the Margins is just the latest entry in tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado's burgeoning catalog, and it is certainly further proof that Amado is among the most exciting and accomplished practitioners of free music in the jazz world. Each new release seems to allow him to hone his craft with ever-greater precision, and with an even wider range of emotional resonances. And with a line-up of free jazz veterans that includes pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, bassist Ingebrigt ...
read moreRodrigo Amado / The Bridge: Beyond The Margins
by Mark Corroto
You might think saxophonist Rodrigo Amado's quartet The Bridge is an allusion to Sonny Rollins' performing and recording hiatus between 1959 and 1961. One spent practicing on the Williamsburg Bridge which links Manhattan and Brooklyn. Besides the name, Amado's previous release, Refraction Solo Live At Church Of The Holy Ghost (Trost, 2022), his first unaccompanied recording, draws inspiration from Rollins' sound and references some of the great man's music. More likely, Amado's bridge is the span linking the ...
read moreThe AtticRodrigo Amado / Gonçalo Almeida / Onno Govaert: Love Ghosts
by John Sharpe
Portuguese tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado has steadily become one of the premier players in the European free jazz arena, having banked the experience that comes through working with the likes of multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, trumpeter Peter Evans and pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, reaping a rich dividend. Just how can be readily heard on Love Ghosts, the third release by the co-operative trio The Attic, where he is joined by fellow countryman bassist Gonçalo Almeida and Dutch drummer Onno Govaert, a ...
read moreRodrigo Amado: Refraction Solo
by Mark Corroto
Are you familiar with Pablo Picasso's found art sculpture Bull's Head"? It was created in 1942 from bicycle handlebars and a bike's saddle. Picasso was walking down the street and spotted the discarded items, and in a flash joined the two, creating an obvious depiction of a bull's head. That same spontaneous moment of creation informs the music from Rodrigo Amado's Refraction Solo. Like Picasso, the musician is a trained and highly skilled artist. Amado leads or is ...
read moreThe Attic: Love Ghosts
by Troy Dostert
Portuguese tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado maintains a busy recording schedule, involving dates with heavy-hitters like Joe McPhee, Alexander von Schlippenbach and Peter Evans, in addition to his own lineups, which do not always generate the same kind of buzz. One of his relatively under-recognized groups is The Attic, an outfit which includes bassist Gonçalo Almeida and drummer Onno Govaert. Their Summer Bummer (NoBusiness, 2019) was a superb live recording, putting the focus squarely on Amado, who is an excellent colleague ...
read moreUllman/Swell Quartet, The Attic Frank Carlberg & Josh Sinton
by Maurice Hogue
Improvisers abound in this episode. Portugal's Rodrigo Amado & The Attic, Bernardo Tinoco & Tom Maciel, Joao Lencastre's quartet, and Pedro Alves Sousa and friends lead the way, while the Chilean band Nichunimu makes its debut with a startling use of electronics. Baritone saxophonist Josh Sinton's back with a new release by his Predicate Quartet, more from Stephen Gauci, Gebhard Ullmann &Steve Swell are joined by bassist Hilliard Greene and drummer Barry Altschul stir the pot with their new We're ...
read moreRodrigo Amado New Trio CD
Source:
All About Jazz
Three years after Teatro, his first trio recording with North-American double-bass player Kent Kessler and Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, widely acclaimed by international reviewers and considered by many a major chapter in Portuguese jazz history, Rodrigo Amado releases The Abstract Truth, an homage to the art of Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico. A studio recording, The Abstract Truth is all about the truth that exists in the act of total improvisation, a complex and demanding discipline that projects, unbiased, what ...
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