New Music Monday — Mike RiRubbo; Justin Kauflin; Ted Nash

It’s New Music Monday on Lunchtime! with Arturo Gómez. On Monday, November 20 at noon, we have new music from Mike DiRubbo, Justin Kauflin, and Ted Nash Quintet…Enjoy!

Mike DiRubbo: “Inner Light”
Mentored by the legendary saxophonist and educator Jackie McLean over 30 years ago Mike has gone on to develop his own sound on the alto saxophone. Before being taken in as a student by Jackie, DiRubbo who hails from the Hartford, CT area was a listener to all music on the radio, from Van Halen to Michael Jackson. For his 10^th recording as a leader Mike chose to use his long-time sidemen from his many live performances, Brian Charette playing the Hammond B3 organ, Andrew Renfroe on guitar and Jongkuk at the drums.  Nine of the 11 tracks are originals by Mike and the other 2 are John Coltrane’s “Straight Street” and the Jerome Kern standard “Dearly Beloved”. Mike DiRubbo’s 26 years of living in New York City is evident in his playing from the downbeat to the coda.

Justin Kauflin Trio: “Live at Sam First”
Growing up in Silver Springs, MD, Justin was a child prodigy on piano and violin. As young as 6 years old he became a highly in-demand performer at weddings, nursing homes, and concerts and even led several orchestras in his pre-teen years. Sadly, at 11 years old Kauflin lost his eyesight but wasn’t deterred, he quickly learned braille and switched to jazz receiving a Presidential scholarship to attend William Paterson University where Harold Mabern and Clark Terry became his teachers. After graduation in 2008 he released his first album and since then has been extremely busy playing around the world as a leader and an accompanist and recording 9 albums under his name. For this, his 11th, he traveled to the Sam First Jazz Club in Los Angeles to record a swinging trio concert with David Robaire-bass and Mark Ferber-drums. The trio offers 9 originals by Justin and 1 nice take of a spiritual.

Ted Nash Quintet: “Live at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola”
A member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra for over 10 years, two-time Grammy®-winner Ted Nash was born in Los Angeles into a family of musicians, his father and uncle were very well-known and acclaimed studio musicians in Los Angeles. Ted is the co-founder of the Jazz Composers Collective of New York, a non-profit organization dedicated to presenting original songs of composers. Nash is a master at playing alto, tenor, clarinet, flute, and piccolo as well as being a high-caliber composer.  One night before the pandemic in 2018, Ted called on 4 of his friends to join him for a concert at Dizzy’s Club in Lincoln Center, Manhattan, Warren Wolf-vibraphones, Gary Versace-piano, Rufus Reid-bass and Matt Wilson-drums. Finally, after 5 years the concert has been released. A swinging night of classics and originals.

Now in its 21st year of debuting the latest arrivals to the KUVO Jazz library, many of them are played ahead of their official release date. In addition to the music comments, I’ll provide a few tidbits about the artist, if it’s a new or an up-and-coming artist. It all begins at Noon every Monday.

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