Ryan Keberle is a jazz trombonist, composer and educator living in New York City.
Hailed in the Jazz Times International Critics Poll as the #1 Trombonist, a player “of vision and composure” according to The New York Times, Ryan Keberle has developed a one-of-a-kind voice both on his instrument and as a composer, earning distinction among jazz’s most adventurous new voices.
Keberle’s outlets include the celebrated indie jazz ensemble, Catharsis; the Big Band Living Legacy Project, carrying on the rich musical language of big band jazz featuring top veteran players in the idiom; the All Ears Orchestra, featuring Ryan’s original compositions and arrangements for Jazz Orchestra, and Reverso, a chamber-jazz collaboration with French pianist Frank Woeste featuring cellist Vincent Courtois and drummer Jeff Ballard.
PROJECTS
LATEST RELEASES – view full discography
What started as Ryan Keberle’s torrid love affair with Brazilian music has blossomed into something far deeper and more enduring. Considerando, the trombonist’s second album with the São Paulo-based Collectiv do Brasil, confirms that this is a singular relationship built to last. Slated for release on July 14, 2023, it’s a deep dive into the songbook of Edu Lobo, the beloved and pervasively influential composer, guitarist and vocalist, still going strong at 79, who bridges the bossa nova-era with the 1970s flowering of MPB (música popular brasileira).
“I love that early and mid-70s period when there was this explosion of the most creative songwriting. So many of the Brazilian songwriters were able to do their thing, and Edu was at the center of it,” says the New York-based Keberle. “Edu was there in the beginning in the ’60s with the Quarteto Novo, the first time artists combined, jazz, Brazilian folk and pop, and just blew open the world for Brazilian composers.”
Considerando follows in the footsteps of Collectiv do Brasil’s acclaimed 2022 debut release Sonhos da Esquina, a ravishing celebration of Milton Nascimento, Toninho Horta and the landmark Minas Gerais-centered Clube da Esquina collective. The project features the original members, drummer Paulinho Vicente and pianist Felipe Silveira (who also contributes three arrangements), with Felipe Brisola taking over the bass chair from Thiago Alves, who had enrolled in a prestigious Swiss jazz program.
“This trio had been performing together their entire adult lives, playing three or four nights a week for more than a decade creating this shared language that we just don’t the opportunity to do here,” Keberle says. “Thiago was in Europe when we toured and recorded this new material and they’d replaced with him with Felipe. Of course, I trust them completely.”
The trust and commitment to creating an improvisation-laced musical world around Lobo’s ingenious compositions is evident throughout the album’s 10 tracks, which include original arrangements of seven Lobo songs. Drawing heavily from his classic 1971 album Sergio Mendes Presents Lobo, the album opens with the crackling “Zanzibar,” an arrangement that exemplifies the Brazilian jazz/jazz Brazilian conversation at the heart of the Collectiv collaboration.
