Herb Geller, alto saxophone
Roberto Magris, piano
Enzo Carpentieri, drums
Nikola Matošić, double bass
Denis Razz Razumović, saxophone
HERB GELLER
 
www.herbgeller.com
 
 
Geller, Herbert (Herb) Alto, Sop. Saxes, Flutes, Clarinet, Piano, Arranger and Composer / Born Nov. 2, 1928 / Los Angeles, Calif. Through his work in big bands, combos and studio orchestras including numerous recordings, Herb became known as one of the leading exponents on alto sax of the so-called West Coast style of jazz in the late fifties along with Art Pepper, Frank Morgan, Bud Shank, Lennie Niehaus and Eric Dolphy. Inspired solos, musical humor and wide range of musical knowledge has earned him the reputation throughout Europe as a "musicans' musican". First inspired by Benny Carter, Johnny Hodges and Willie Smith, then later by Charlie Parker and the pianist Joe Albany, Herb began his professional career at the age of 18 in the orchestras of Joe Venuti and Jimmy Zito. In 1949 he moved to New York City where he played with the orchestras of Claude Thornhill, Lucky Millinder and Jerry Wald. In 1952 he married the jazz pianist Lorraine Walsh and joined the Billy May orchestra returning to Los Angeles where be became active in the West Coast scene. There he played and recorded with among others: Shorty Rodgers, Maynard Ferguson, Chet Baker, Bill Holman, Marty Paich, Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Red Mitchell, Barney Kessel, Andre Previn and Dinah Washington. He performed with his own quartet including his wife Lorraine and Shelly Manne until her death in 1958. He then worked with Benny Goodman, Louie Bellson and Shelly Manne until 1962 when he departed for Europe. After five months in Paris performing for the French Radio program "Musique Aux Champs Elysee", he joined the Radio Free Berlin orchestra in West Berlin where he married Christine Rabsch. In 1965 he joined the North German Radio in Hamburg where he still lives. He retired from that orchestra in 1994 and is currently active with his own trio and quartet performing, recording and teaching. In Europe he has performed with the big bands of Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland, Friedrich Gulda's Euro Jazz Orchestra, the Klaus Weiss Band, George Gruntz's band, Peter Herbolzheimer's Rhythm Combination, three albums with the Swedish composer Nils Lindberg, as well as the BBC Orchestra, the Holland Metropole Orchestra, many performances with the NDR Jazz Studio Orchestra, and with small groups such as the Bill Evans Trio, Baden Powell and Joe Pass. He has composed and arranged music for films and TV. Among some of his recordings on Mercury: Clifford Brown/Max Roach/Dinah Washington session albums, plus three of his own that have been reissued on CD. On Atlantic Records: Music from "Gypsy", (with Elvin, Hank and Thad Jones and Scott Lafaro); and "Rhyme And Reason Time". Also re-released are the CDs of "Stax Of Sax", (with Victor Feldman and Walter Norris); "Fire In The West" (with Ray Brown, Lou Levy and Kenny Dorham). Also available are: Fresh Sound, 1991: "Birdland Stomp" (with Kenny Drew and Niels-Henning Orsted-Pedersen); V.S.O.P., 1993: "Herb Geller Quartet" ( with Louie Bellson, Tom Rainier and Jimmy Rowles); Fresh Sound, 1996: Stockholm Get Together" ( with Jan Lundgren); HEP ,1996: "Herb Geller Plays The Al Cohn Songbook"; Soulnote, 2006: “Roberto Magris Europlane feat. Herb Geller – Il bello del jazz”. Herb Geller is still active in teaching and has a Professorship status. Among the schools where he has taught are the "Hochschule für Musik und Theater" (Conervatory for performing arts) in Hamburg, the "Hochschule für Künste" in Bremen and conservatories in Hannover and Rotterdam. He has done seminars for the Yamaha Music Corporation and for "Schott And Sons", for which he wrote a jazz instruction book entitled "Crossover".
ROBERTO MAGRIS
 
www.myspace.com/robertomagrisjazz
 
 
 
Born in Trieste (Italy) in 1959 and began his jazz career in the late ‘70s. In the ‘80s, he led a jazz trio named "Gruppo Jazz Marca", whose recordings were reissued in 2006, as collector’s items, by the English label Arision. During the times of the "iron curtain", Magris was privileged to be one of the very few West European musicians to collaborate on a regular basis with the East European musicians on the jazz scene. He performed in the former Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, DDR / East Germany, Hungary and Romania. In 1987, he formed the "Roberto Magris Quartet” that continues to play, record and schedules tours all around the world. This unit has recorded several CD’s, among them the classic album "Maliblues". From 1998-2002, Roberto Magris was bandleader for the "Europlane Orchestra", a central-European jazz venture sponsored by INCE-CEI (Central European Initiative) which performed and has recorded 3 CD’s: "Live at Zooest", "Plays Kurt Weill" with singer Ines Reiger and "Current Views" featuring guitarist Philip Catherine and vibraphonist Bill Molenhof. In 2003, Magris continued to build bridges and forge close bonds of musical relationships as he formed the "Roberto Magris Europlane". This unit was designed to include a unique blend of the best European and American jazz artists in one musical context. This unit has recorded 2 critically acclaimed straight-ahead jazz CD’s entitled: "Il Bello del Jazz" (SoulNote) with saxophonist Herb Geller (the West-Coast jazz master) and "Check In" (SoulNote), featuring a saxophone duo of Tony Lakatos and Michael Erian. Both CD’s received stunning reviews from the International jazz critics. From these recordings and performances a compelling musical partnership has been formed with one of Europe’s finest soloist, world renowned jazz saxophonist, Tony Lakatos. In 2006, Magris collaborated with musical icon, Art Davis (the legendary bassist for John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong and Max Roach as well as other notables). This same year Magris made his USA debut in Hollywood, California performing at such famous jazz venues as "The Jazz Bakery" and "Catalina’s Jazz Club". In 2007 Magris returned to the USA for a performance at the Historic 18th and Vine Jazz District in Kansas City, Missouri. His performance at “The Blue Room" also included a jazz tribute to the late jazz and blues icon, Jay McShann. Magris took this opportunity to record the CD entitled "Kansas City Outbound", on trio with Art Davis, on bass and Jimmy “Junebug” Jackson (the 21 year veteran drummer for Jimmy Smith) and Zack Albetta (drummer for world renowned saxophonist, Bobby Watson). In 2008, Magris returned to Los Angeles as bandleader for concerts and to record new material with an all-star USA quintet which included Paul Carr and Michael O’Neill on saxes, Elisa Pruett on bass and the legendary musical stylist, Idris Muhammad on drums. In the same year he also participated, as a guest soloist, composer and arranger, for the CD "Big Band Ritmo-Sinfonica Citta di Verona plays the music of Roberto Magris / Restless Spirits" (Velut Luna). In 2009, Magris renewed his collaboration with legendary saxophonist Herb Geller (who worked with Benny Carter, Clifford Brown, Chet Baker, Benny Goodman, Scott LaFaro, Bill Evans as well as other notables) performing together at several jazz festivals in Europe. Magris has recorded more than 16 albums with his own groups and has played concerts in more than 30 different countries in Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Australia, also performing at the top jazz festivals worldwide. In the early years of his career he performed as a sideman with legendary jazz masters such as Kai Winding, Eddie Lockjaw Davis and Sal Nistico. Other outstanding musical collaborations include Franco Ambrosetti, Florian Brambock, Frantisek Uhlir, Darko Jurkovic, Richie Buckley, Janusz Muniak, Ricardo Cavalli, Achim Goettert, Fabio Jegher, the "Traditional Jazz Studio" from Prague, and the African percussionists from Gabon. As a complementary musical experience, in the ‘90s Magris led the acid jazz group "DMA Urban Jazz Funk" whichrecorded 2 CD’s. In 2003, he formed and continues to perform with “Alfabeats Nu Jazz", a "progressive urban jazz" band, recording the CD "Stones", which has received high responses from the jazz critics and international community.
About Magris’ style, jazz critic Ira Gitler wrote: “as a pianist he reflects some of his most admired models - Wynton Kelly, Tommy Flanagan, Bill Evans, Kenny Drew, Jaki Byard, Randy Weston, McCoy Tyner, Andrew Hill, Paul Bley, Don Pullen and Steve Kuhn (a varied group indeed) - in his own way. There is a quick, supple right hand and the rich harmonies of the two-handed transitions in his playing that don’t necessarily summon up instant comparisons to any of the above or others.”
ENZO CARPENTIERI
Active on the jazz scene since the mid 80s, Carpentieri has performed regularly with Massimo Urbani, Piero Odorici, Carlo Atti, Maurizio Caldura, Sal Nistico and has accompanied soloists that include: Art Farmer, Dusko Goykovich, Valery Ponomarev, Lee Konitz, Tony Scott, Steve Grossman, Ralph La Lama, Harold Danko, Vic Juris, Ferenc Snetberger, Cameron Brown, Aladar Pege. He has recorded with the European Music Orchestra with guest artists Claudio Fasoli, Kenny Wheeler, Aldo Romano. Carpentieri has ongoing collaborations with Dick Oatts, Jim Snidero, Bob Sands, Kurt Weiss, Erwin Vann, Tony Overwater, Paolo Birro, Ettore Martin, Roberto Magris, Robert Bonisolo and Antonio Farao. He has performed across Europe, Canada, Australia, Asia, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong and New York.
“When I was ten my main source of musical inspiration was my father’s dancing club. The club was immersed in greenness of hills and bordered on a zoo where exotic animals with no residence permit talked theirs syncopated and really weird languages. Sitting at the bar I listened to the Rock from the Juke Box and at the dancing, among a Quickstep and a Paso Doble, I was amazed at dancer’s flexibility and at the cheerfulness living in danced rhythm. I immediately felt in love with animals, music and dancers. Roughly ten years later I bought my first drum, a Gretsch even darker than Dannie Richmond whom I happily lend it to and who was the first to play it the way it should be. His black Ray Ban reflected cymbals and drums profiles and at once I felt in love with afro-American music for good. It was in ’79, I was just of age, I decided….when I’ll be grown up…am gonna be a Jazz drummer!”
NIKOLA MATOŠIĆ
Nikola Matošić was born in 1978 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He discovered that jazz music was his passion while a sophomore at the high school for chemistry. He started his career as a self-thought musician. Later on he joined various seminars, workshops, private lesions and after that enrolled, to sharpen his musical knowledge, in the Private University for Music, in Linz. Even though pursuing his dream meant getting into a violent conflict with his parents, he soon appeared on many stages in Slovenia and abroad. Twelve years ago he started organizing jam sessions at various locations in Ljubljana. However, for the last nine years, he has been the organizer of the famous Monday jam sessions in the jazz club Gajo in Ljubljana and consequently also responsible for the development of jazz music in the Slovenian capital city and in Slovenia. Besides that he was also a co-organizer of jazz seminars and performances in Slovenia, involving names such as Barry Harris, Doug Hammond and others. By now he has proudly shared a stage with many musicians known throughout the world. If we enumerate just some of them: Arron Goldberg, Deborah Brown, Rachel Gould, Don Menza, Allan Praskin, Roberto Magris, Peter Mihelič, Renato Chicco, Douglas Sides, Howard Curtis, Tony Lakatos, Florian Brambock, Herb Geller,… as well as many rising names of the younger jazz generation and well respected Slovenian jazz names. His primary passion has always been jazz music, but he is also appreciated by musicians of other musical genres. Thus he collaborated with many popular Slovenian musicians like Zoran Predin, Oto Pestner, Adi Smolar… He is known for his smile, impeccable rhythm, and profound sound, not to mention that his goal is always to satisfy the audience.
DENIS RAZUMOVIĆ RAZZ
Denis Razumović Razz was born in Rijeka, Croatia (Europe) on September 19th 1964. He is a self taught musician who started to play the guitar at the age of 13 and since then, music has been his major occupation. At the age of 15 he started to analyse techniques and play solos of many world known sax players. After a while, Razz switched his tenor sax for an alto. He built his style through jazz and blues. As a guitar player, he has played jazz-rock and fusion, and as a sax player he has conducted a few bands and played with them in local clubs. In 1988 Razz entered the jazz Department of the University for Music and Dramatic Arts in Graz (Austria) in class of Prof. Karlhainz Miklin, and stayed there for two years. Denis Razz is also a winner of several prizes such as: 1992 - Best Jazz Soloist in "First Jazz Applause" contest at the Spring Jazz Festival in Zagreb, 2003 and 2008 - "Status Award" (Croatian music award assigned by professional musicians) as the most eminent jazz sax player of that year, 2004 - Denis Razz gets an appreciation by the City of Rijeka for his 20 year long contribution to the music scene and promotion of culture. In 2007, Razz published his first solo album "In Umbra" (Dallas Records) which contains jazz standards together with a few of his own compositions. He recorded this album in a two-day session in Robert Funčić' Studio in Rijeka, with the following musicians: Mladen Baraković Lima, Darko Jurković Charlie, and Marko Lazarić. Razz is an all-round musician who plays in all styles with many Croatian and world musicians. He currently works in two projects with his permanent associate Spartaco Crnjaric. The first project is a quartet with different rhythm sections e.g. Lazaric - Veselinovic or Grbac – Grabusic, etc. With this Quartet, Razz plays mostly his own compositions and just a few selected jazz standards. The second project is the "Montegrapa Trio" with above mentioned Spartaco and double bass player Darko Mihelić Boćo with which he plays ballads and mainstream jazz standards.
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