Diego Rivera: Press

Lansing State Journal - Oct. 26, 2006

CD review: 'Hercules,' Diego Rivera Quartet
Diego Rivera's debut CD is a herculean accomplishment

By CHRIS RIETZ

East Lansing's own Diego Rivera wants to see his hometown have a jazz scene of its own, and with his debut CD "Hercules," released just last month, he's done his part - it'd be hard to imagine a more auspicious debut.

But saxman Rivera, only 28, is no newbie.

His resume is studded with gigs alongside name-brand jazzmen, and he's a protege of the legendary Rodney Whitaker, bassist with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and now director of Jazz Studies at MSU.

The CD was slow in coming - herculean, Rivera says, because the process was so laborious - but it's a true quartet project.

After playing every Tuesday at Harper's in East Lansing for two years, the Diego Rivera Quartet was thoroughly battle-tested before it hit the studio, and it sounds like it.

Drummer Lawrence Leathers drives the band like Art Blakey without the brute force, and Andrew Klein owns that unstoppable harmonic propulsiveness that the best modern jazz bassists have to have. Pianist John Nam - mentioned in this space as a member of fiddler Jeremy Kittel's jazz quartet - is an astonishingly intuitive player, his tight riffing beneath Rivera's sax lines almost uncanny.

Rivera, who wrote all 10 tracks on "Hercules," is in some ways a straight-ahead player of the old school, possessed of a powerful Coleman Hawkins-type tone but with a gleaming, post-modern austerity.

In fact, the whole quartet has a lean, exhilarating sound, humming with bop-fueled energy, a band that - dare we say it? - could appeal to listeners far beyond the hard-core jazz audience.

The tenor is Rivera's axe of choice, but his soprano sax playing is a revelation. Long the victim of Kenny G-style excess, the soprano in Rivera's hands is tender, almost seductive, whether it's singing in the lyrical "The Unsaid" or flying high in the careening "Beggar's Bagger."

Rivera has now joined the MSU faculty, and the credentials are great, but the proof is in the groove, and "Hercules" leaves no doubt that he's a heavyweight.

All original music - and honest-to-gosh melodies, mind you, not just riff-based heads, a jazz lexicon that's uncompromising and downright exciting to listen to, and a band that thoroughly kicks the gong. When's the last time you heard a jazz album in which every note meant something?

Lansing State Journal - Sept. 7, 2006

MSU professor throws a party

By ANNE ERICKSON

MSU professor of jazz Diego Rivera has simple, yet oh-so true, advice for wide-eyed, up-and-coming musicians: "Practice, practice, practice. Listen, listen, listen. Repeat as follows."

"The best path to success for students I've always found is disciplined practice with a healthy dose of listening to the masters of the music," he added.

Rivera, 28, might just be the coolest music professor around. He first came to MSU in 2002, studying saxophone. Rivera was still a student when Rodney Whitaker, director of jazz studies, got the hunch that he might make a great instructor.

Perhaps it was Rivera's mature understanding of the music that caught Whitaker's attention.

"Jazz music is like a language," Rivera said. "To effectively speak any language, it requires that you understand the culture in which the language comes form. Jazz language is no different. ... The challenge of becoming a great saxophonist is nothing compared to that of becoming a great jazz musician."

Fans of Rivera would assert that he's mastered both saxophone and jazz music. He's studied under jazz great Branford Marsalis; he's also a composer who has arranged music for Lincoln Center's Motor City Jazz concert.

Add to that Diego's popular Diego Rivera Quartet, which releases its debut CD at the Creole Gallery Friday.

The CD is named "Hercules," after one of the album's tunes.

"I thought it was representative of the project itself," Rivera said. "Quite the undertaking. At times I felt like Hercules completing the 12 labors. Each step to finishing the CD was a project in itself."

Rivera composed and arranged all the music on the disc, and he says the CD is a sample of where he was musically when the works were first written, about two years ago.

"There's a whole new collection of music that I would like to record," Rivera said. "That's my favorite part about putting together a CD. It is a snapshot of where I am in that moment and it allows me to move on; to not stay in one place creatively."

Show details: Diego Rivera Quartet CD Release show, 8 p.m. Friday, Creole Gallery, 1218 Turner St. Old Town, 487-9549; $16, $13 students.

Lansing City Pulse - Sept. 6, 2006

Jazz quartet, boogie-woogie duo launch Creole season

By LAWRENCE COSENTINO

Where there is boogie, there is woogie.

Therefore, where there is a Boogie Bob, there must be a Woogie Bob.

Three years ago, Lansing’s “Boogie Bob” Baldori, founder of the rock ‘n roll combo The Woolies and Chuck Berry’s piano man for 40 years, discovered his ultimate keyboard dance partner — and musical challenge — in piano legend Bob Seeley.

Home town fresh: Jazzman Diego Rivera uncorks his first CD at a Creole release party Friday. (Photo courtesy of MSU School of Music)


The piano-crushing two-act of Seeley and Baldori, crowd-pleaser of the 2005 Great Lakes Folk Festival, will help Old Town’s Creole Gallery launch another season of eclectic, stimulating music. Two baby grands will be wheeled onto the stage for the occasion, and five camera operators will film the event for posterity.

The Creole’s big opening weekend really starts Friday night, however, as the gallery’s peeling walls are re-peeled by the Diego Rivera Quartet, celebrating the release of the MSU saxophone luminary’s first CD.

Friday’s season opener marks the return of the crack jazz combo that held forth to critical and popular acclaim each Tuesday for over a year at Harper’s in East Lansing.

Rivera, an accomplished soloist, composer and arranger from East Lansing, has matured into a major jazz figure under the eyes of his home town. Pianist John Nam, a native of Seoul, South Korea, now gigs in New York. Bassist Andrew Klein and drummer Lawrence Leathers studied with local jazz legends Rodney Whitaker and Randy Gelispie, respectively, and Leathers has already performed with super-pianists Mulgrew Miller and Eric Reed.

The reunion of this supple, highly communicative combo has been long awaited by local jazz fans.

The next night, Saturday’s two shows will serve up the first local two-Bob-fest in over a year.

Baldori says working with Seeley has changed his life. “He’s 78 and he’s got these arms like Popeye and plays at the edge of human limits, where a young man cannot play.”

Ivory poachers: Hot boogie-woogie duo Bob Baldori (right) and Bob Seeley return to Lansing to help the Creole Gallery kick off its 2006-’07 season Saturday night. (Photo courtesy of Bob Baldori)


Seeley grew up in Detroit, where he hung out with greats like Art Tatum and Eubie Blake and fell under the boogie-woogie spell of a lesser-known piano giant, Meade Lux Lewis.

Baldori discovered Seeley while developing a film series on unsung music legends. “Seeley’s like the last living link to these people that go back to Day 1,” Baldori says. “He knows a thousand songs.”

Baldori is himself a veteran boogie man who has earned the respect of musicians like his friend Chuck Berry, but he compares his duos with Seeley to riding a bucking bronco. “The strength of these hands, pounding these grand pianos, the speed at which he does it, the encyclopedic repertoire are breathtaking.”

Recently, Baldori and Seeley played a duo gig in Detroit that drew the attention of Hammell Music, the mother lode of Baldwin pianos in the region. Hammell set the pair up with two baby grand pianos, which will somehow be parked on the tiny Creole stage.

“They’re spectacular,” Baldori says. “They look great and sound great. You get a big bass you can’t get from a upright.”

A five-camera documentary crew will also be on hand at the Creole, assembling footage for a film on the pair. “That’s another reason I wanted the Steinways in there,” Baldori says. “I wanted to do it up right.”

“They’re sitting in my studio,” he adds with pride. “Now we just have to figure out how to get them in the Creole.”