7:00 pm
Jimmy Burns @ JUS BLUES Foundation Blues Music Awards, Biloxi, MS
Jus Blues Foundation
Javier Red Trio @ Fitzgerald’s, Berwyn, IL
Wed April 3, 2024
THE JAVIER RED TRIO “On Monk” : Celebrating the music of Thelonious Monk
JAVIER RED TRIO
Show: 7:00 pmDoors: 5:00 pm
Delmark DE 5031 (2019)
Compact Disc
This is music for the time after. After so many trends and the aftermath of 20th century’s aesthetic propositions this is music that reflects into itself and contemplates itself on a historical mirror without recurring to the alibi of the “tribute”. This is music that, as poet Ezra Pound said, assumes “the tradition is a beauty we preserve and not a set of fetters to bind us. Some may say Javier Red picks up where Chicago pioneer Lennie Tristano had left his experiences of organized freedom. And it wouldn’t be wrong. This is cool and smart music, shamelessly intellectual. It is both highly conceptual and very focused on vindicating the craft, the careful embroidering of the musical tapestry. Not unlike Tristano’s, Javier’s music is extraordinarily demanding on the musicians because of the level of skills expected from them but also because of the deep commitment that it is required to perform it. Knowing your changes, patterns and scales is not enough to play this music in which the form is reinvented for each composition and where shifting time signatures and bi-tonal or poly-tonal passages bring the complexity of Igor Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, and the Mexican genius Silvestre Revueltas right into the 21st century jazz alchemy.
In a time in which the mainstream jazz language usually embraced by club owners and festival and radio programmers is some sort of inconsequential neo-bop, taught in colleges all over the country, Javier Red and his musical partners immerse themselves in a deep and long process of collective melodic, harmonic and rhythmic quest.
BIO
I am a non-conventional Jazz pianist, bandleader, and entrepreneur. I was born and raised in Mexico City, and in 2015 I moved to Chicago. Although I had (and still have) key musical mentors in my career, I am mainly self-taught. My relationship with music came up by listening to diverse music; Old Mexican popular music (mostly from my grandparents), 80s pop music, Latin American/Spanish protest music, Classical music (with a special love for Stravinsky), and Jazz. This is important, as my influences -whether conscious or unconscious- today are rather wide than only jazz-based. I recorded several albums in Mexico, and In 2019, I released my first album with my Chicago band Imagery Converter, on the historic Delmark Records Label. We were selected in the USA as the best debut album by the NPR Jazz Critics Polls in 2019.
In 2001 I found -together with Jose Gurria (L.A. Gurrisonic Orchestra)- Ethos Trio, with whom we were enrolled in several international performances, such as the International Festival Meet in Beijing in China, and the Washington Kennedy Center Celebrating Mexico among others. We also frequently had Michael Caldwell (California State University senior faculty fellow) as a special guest with whom we performed in Mexico and USA.
I was part of Papabetos; Mexican Big Band, which featured invited artists such as Kiyoshi Kitagawa on bass.
In 2006 I met Matt Davis (NY based Guitar player & Manhattan School of Music guitar faculty member). We started creating and presenting our music in New York, Philadelphia and Mexico City, recording a Duo Album En Nuestros Viajes, which was ranked as one of the best 2011 Albums by Tome to the Weather Machine.
I played in some of the most important venues in Mexico, such as Palacio de Bellas Artes and CENART, as well as venues around the world such as Beijing Haidan Centre, Washington Kennedy Center, and Notre Dame University DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.
I have been invited for multiple festivals such as Eurojazz, Festival Cervantino, Havana-Cuba Jazz Festival, and Lima Jazz Festival among others.
Javier Red Trio
Comprising Javier Red on piano, Dan Thatcher on bass, and Tim Davis on drums, the trio presents a performance centered around their interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s compositions. They skillfully meld Monk’s distinct rhythmic nuances with their own improvisational styles.
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