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Julius Rodriguez: Let Sound Tell All

By Chris May
June 16, 2022
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At 23 years, New York-based keyboards player and drummer Julius Rodriguez is close to being a founder member of Gen Z and so was an adolescent when the iPad was giving way to streaming and a new, randomised perspective on jazz and music in general was being shaped. The Juillard School dropout—Rodriguez quit in 2018 to go on tour with rapper A$AP Rocky—stirs gospel, jazz, classical, R&B, hip-hop, electronica and advanced post-production techniques into the mix. It may not represent the entire future of jazz, but it does represent, like it or not, part of it.

Jazz-plus hybrids are nothing new, of course, and the idea received hefty boosts earlier in the 21st century from pianist

Robert Glasper

piano
b.1978

" data-original-title="" title="">Robert Glasper and trumpeter

Roy Hargrove

trumpet
1969 - 2018

" data-original-title="" title="">Roy Hargrove, among others. But what distinguishes Gen Z jazz from previous mash-ups, which were merely post-modern, is that, as a 360-degree post-streaming spin on the music, it is the product of a sonic universe where genres, artists and traditions rub up against each other with febrile promiscuity.

Something of a child prodigy, Rodriguez was, we are told, impressing audiences at Smalls Jazz Club with his rendition of

Duke Ellington

piano
1899 - 1974

" data-original-title="" title="">Duke Ellington's "Take the A Train" when he was still a pre-teen, and A$AP Rocky was followed by Rodriguez's membership of bassist

Alexander Claffy

bass
b.1992

" data-original-title="" title="">Alexander Claffy's trio. The latter liaison is documented on tenor saxophonist and vocalist

Michael Stephenson

saxophone, tenor

" data-original-title="" title="">Michael Stephenson's Michael Stephenson Meets The Alexander Claffy Trio, released on

Cory Weeds

saxophone, alto
b.1973

" data-original-title="" title="">Cory Weeds' Cellar Live label in 2021. Rodriguez's tap root appears to be embedded in jazz. Certainly, one can hear the echoes of

John Coltrane

saxophone
1926 - 1967

" data-original-title="" title="">John Coltrane and

Thelonious Monk

piano
1917 - 1982

" data-original-title="" title="">Thelonious Monk in his music as clearly as those of Solange.

There are vocals on a couple of tracks, but basically Let Sound Tell All is a keyboard-led trio album. Guest horn players figure on three tracks. Trumpeter

Giveton Gelin

trumpet

" data-original-title="" title="">Giveton Gelin has three solos laid on top of each other (George Martin-style) on "Gift Of The Moon," and is heard again towards the end of the deep-gospel "Where Grace Abounds" (check the YouTube below), the third single from the album (and the most straight-ahead track). Tenor saxophonist

Morgan Guerin

multi-instrumentalist

" data-original-title="" title="">Morgan Guerin rips it up on "Two Way Street," which is essentially a duo workout with Rodriguez, on drums, in the manner of Coltrane and

Elvin Jones

drums
1927 - 2004

" data-original-title="" title="">Elvin Jones.

Postscript: Rodriguez is among a growing number of musicians who have enough self-assurance to recognise that less often means more. Let Sound Tell All comes in at under 35:00, well short of the digitally bloated playing times of too many modern albums.

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Track Listing

Blues At The Barn; All I Do; Interlude; Gift Of The Moon; Two Way Street; Where Grace Abounds; Elegy (for Cam); In Heaven; Philip��s Thump.

Personnel

Julius Rodriguez

piano

Additional Instrumentation

Julius Rodriguez: piano, Hammond B3, synths, Rhodes, drums; Morgan Guerin: saxophone (3, 5); Giveton Gelin: trumpet (4, 6); Philip Norris: bass (1, 6-8); Ben Wolfe: bass (2); Daryl Johns: bass (4); Joe Saylor: drums (1, 2); Brian Richburg Jr: drums (3, 6-8); Jongkook Kim: drums (4); Mariah Cameron: vocals (2); Nick Hakim: vocal (6).

Album information

Title: Let Sound Tell All | Year Released: 2022 | Record Label: Verve Records

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