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Reggie Quinerly: The Thousandth Scholar

By Chris May
January 5, 2024
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The Thousandth Scholar is Los Angeles-based drummer and composer Reggie Quinerly's fifth album, each out on his Redefinition label. Quinerly themes his albums. His debut was Music Inspired By Freedmantown (2012), a tribute to the Houston neighborhood where he was born and raised. It was followed by Invictus (2015), a salute to hard bop, Words In Love (2018), which dealt with vocals, and New York Nowhere (2021), a portrait of life in the city (Quinerly studied at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and at the Juilliard School).

The new album has an Afro-Caribbean / Latin theme, subtle at times, upfront at others. And it cooks. Its inspiration was a quote by Ahmad Jamal (see the YouTube below), whose Blue Moon (Jazz Village, 2012) is one of Quinerly's favorite albums. Like Jamal's on that album, Quinerly's band is a piano trio+percussionist quartet, an exceptionally talented and well fused one completed by the Havana-born Grammy-nominated pianist

Manuel Valera

piano
b.1980

" data-original-title="" title="">Manuel Valera, a friend of Quinerly's since the pair attended the New School in the early 2000s, bassist

Matt Brewer

bass
b.1983

" data-original-title="" title="">Matt Brewer, and the inventive Colombian-born percussionist

Samuel Torres

percussion
b.1976

" data-original-title="" title="">Samuel Torres. Although Quinerly wrote all but one of the eight tunes (Valera's "Invernal"), The Thousandth Scholar is really as much Valera's album as it is Quinerly's. Valera co-produced with Quinerly, arranged all the tracks and is the chief soloist, on-mic practically throughout. Brewer takes a couple of brief solos, ditto Torres. Quinerly never solos (one has to love that on a drummer's album).

Valera has named his primary influences as

Bill Evans

piano
1929 - 1980

" data-original-title="" title="">Bill Evans,

Chick Corea

piano
1941 - 2021

" data-original-title="" title="">Chick Corea and

Keith Jarrett

piano
b.1945

" data-original-title="" title="">Keith Jarrett. This embrace of the US piano tradition contributes to the album's balance of Latin and straight-ahead jazz, which is all the more engaging for being so uncalculated. "Ray's Tune" is barely filtered mambo with some terrific breaks from Torres and an in-the-tradition ostinato from Valera. "Folk Song" and "Skain's Blues" also wear their Latin origins on their sleeves. Elsewhere we are talking

Jelly Roll Morton

piano
1890 - 1941

" data-original-title="" title="">Jelly Roll Morton's "Spanish tinge" with the accent on tinge.

The Thousandth Scholar is fresh, hard driving, unencumbered by genre clich��s, and recommended to lovers of expansive piano-led jazz.

Learn more about our star rating system

Track Listing

She That Steps in Bull's Blood; Felipe Jacinto; Folk Song; Invernal; Ray's Tune; Children Song #10; Sam from Brooklyn; Skain's Blues.

Personnel

Reggie Quinerly

drums

Manuel Valera

piano

Matt Brewer

bass

Samuel Torres

percussion

Album information

Title: The Thousandth Scholar | Year Released: 2024 | Record Label: Redefinition Music

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