Let Sound Tell All (Verve)

Julius Rodriguez

Released June 10, 2022

AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2022

YouTube:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kKTPvXpmn-hHoMyVh-WlGb9nTPB3SE1VQ

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/7niCvulg9SvnrLRg7frS3L?si=w7wcAXW1RaCgNVtABRq40Q

About:

On his debut album Let Sound Tell All, 23 year old musician Julius Rodriguez stirs a cauldron of gospel, jazz, classical, R&B, hip-hop, experimentation, production and sheer technical wizardry to create a stunning debut that eschews classification, but commands attention. As an 11 year old kid, Rodriguez honed his jazz chops at Smalls Jazz Club, wowing elders while wearing a hoodie and banging out Ellington. Fast forward to 2018 when he dropped out of Juilliard, shimmying off the rigid curriculum to tour with A$AP Rocky.
Fast forward to 2022, Rodriguez is on the cusp of a stellar release that weaves his life and influences – from Monk, Coltrane, Solange, James Blake, Sampha and more. Call him Gen-Z jazz, but when you hear Julius Rodriguez play “the music,” as he calls it, it’s a modern sound, as fluent in history as it is aware of its contemporary context. His music dares to imagine a future of new standards and sonic excitement. This vanguard was raised in an atmosphere where pop and hip-hop and dance influenced their approaches to melody and harmony and rhythm, so of course it is part of their improvisational DNA. And that’s what Julius Rodriguez’s Sound tells to whoever will choose to listen.
“Gift Of The Moon” is one of the first songs Rodriguez wrote – a vibing number marked by layered solos a la Roy Hargrove, George Martin-level experimentation and a tight synth melody. “Two Way Street” is a combustible head-banger of a jazz tune with a nod to Coltrane’s high-octane Classic Quartet with an acid-trip of a production. Then you get taken to church with “When Grace Abounds,” a spiritual, self-reflective number that displays Rodriguez’s prodigious understanding of simple and profound melody. It starts as a duet between Rodriguez on electric piano and Hammond B-3 organ – it’s “a song I wrote at a time where I felt like I wasn’t being the best version of myself yet, and still a lot of great things were happening to me. So it’s me being grateful for being in the situation I’m in, even though I felt like I didn’t deserve it.” Drew of the Drew and Jon Castelli mix it into a ghostly, gospel-like wonder.

Track Listing:

1. Blues at the Barn (Julius Rodriguez) 03:34

2. All I Do (Stevie Wonder) 04:40

3. Soundcheck Interlude (Julius Rodriguez) 01:08

4. Gift of the Moon (Julius Rodriguez) 02:58

5. Two Way Street (Julius Rodriguez) 04:21

6. Where Grace Abounds (Julius Rodriguez) 04:02

7. Elegy (For Cam) (Julius Rodriguez) 07:50

8. In Heaven (Darlene Andrews) 05:03

9. Philip’s Thump (Julius Rodriguez) 01:04

Personnel:

Julius Rodriguez: piano, Hammond B3 (6), synthesizer (4, 7, 8), Rhodes (4), drums (2, 5)

Philip Norris: bass (1, 6, 7, 9)

Joe Saylor: drums (1, 2)

Ben Wolfe: bass (2)

Brian Richburg Jr: drums (3, 6, 7, 9)

Morgan Guerin: saxophone (3, 5), electric bass (5)

Giveton Gelin: trumpet (4, 6)

Daryl Johns: bass (4)

Jongkook Kim: drums (4)

Mariah Cameron: vocals (2)

Vuyo Sotashe: backing vocals (2)

Nick Hakim: backing vocals (4)

Hailey Knox: backing vocals (7)

Samara Joy: vocals (8)

Recorded at Strange Weather Studios, Flux Studios, Jazz Gallery, Black Lodge Studios, Brooklyn, The Bunker Studio

Produced by Drew Of The Drew, Julius Rodriguez

Recorded by Daniel Schlett, Drew Moore, Joey Wunsch, John Muller, Julius Rodriguez, Vishal Nayak, Alex Conroy, Hailey Knox, Ido Ivraham and Daniel Sanint

Mixed by Jon Castelli, Josh Deguzman

Mastered by Kevin Reeves

Review:

A true cross-genre phenomenon, pianist Julius Rodriguez is a gifted improviser and composer well-versed in the jazz tradition, but also at home in gospel, funk, and hip-hop settings. Rodriguez, who also goes by his nickname, “Orange Julius,” has backed jazz vocalist Carmen Lundy and, most notably, toured with rapper A$AP ROCKY in 2018. He brings this deep well of stylistic inspiration to his Verve debut, 2022’s dynamically realized Let Sound Tell All. There’s a post-modernism and sonic warmth to the album as Rodriguez blends organic live jazz and inventive studio production. It’s a combination perhaps best exemplified by the opener, “Blues at the Barn.” A hard-swinging blues in the McCoy Tyner tradition, it starts with Rodriguez and his trio with bassist Philip Norris and drummer Joe Saylor playing to an appreciative clapping crowd at what could be an outdoor festival before morphing EDM-style into what is clearly a vividly captured in-studio performance. Rodriguez plays with other mind-bending studio conceits throughout the album, finding ever more ear-popping ways to reframe his adventurous jazz. “Two Way Street” starts with a kinetic drum pattern against which tenor saxophonist Braxton Cook blows fiery lines with a guttural intensity that Rodriguez filters through a psychedelic soundboard, transforming the saxophonist’s every breath into a miasma of shrieks and spiraling laser tones. No less sonically adventurous is “Gift of the Moon,” a funky hip-hop-infused track in which Rodriguez lays down a dewy bed of synths and electric piano over which trumpeter Giveton Gelin plays a dreamlike web of trumpet melodies. More delicate moments pop up elsewhere, as on the languid “Elegy (For Cam).” Beginning with Rodriguez’s hypnotic piano and synth chords played over a woody, wave-like bass groove, the song culminates in a sparkling shimmer of gospel vocal harmonies from singer Hailey Knox. With Let Sound Tell All, Rodriguez has made an album that deftly bridges the gap between earthy live jazz and wizard-like studio craftsmanship.

Matt Collar (AllMusic)