This is a track from my latest Quintet Recording.  "Pobeto" was the nickname of a friend  back in 95 who was getting in too much trouble here in NYC and I had to call his brother and get him back to Brazil before it was too late.  He got straightened out but I missed the friendship and his incredible personal relationship  to guitar. This is a Choro with 3 parts - C being open for solos  with Eric Schugren -tenor sax, Ben Holmes -trumpet, Evan Francis - Alto, Billy Newman - guitar, Leco Reis - bass and Kenny Grohowski on the drums

Pobeto

A Sound  Collage from someone's interview.   my first attempt, this sort of cutup.  Hope to have reason to do more of this type of work  at some point soon.

Men Men Men Men

This is a medley of 3 Original Choros 1.  For Lilia: "Choro Calms Her Anger",  2. "For the two Ernestos and the Revolutionary Spirit", 3. "Largo do Machado Dezessete Horas".

Choro Medley

For Cajon, Timpani, Agogo, Chimes and anvil,Cabasa, tuned Cymbals

percussion piece # 1

This is an interpretation on my father's attempt to leave Sheepshead bay and head to Red Hook Brooklyn to pound the pavement for the election of Henry Wallace in 1948.  It hasn't been played yet so this is the "Virtual Audio"  It is for concert band minus the double reeds.

Incident in Red Hook: A meditation on Violence in Brooklyn

This is a mockup of my Chamber Orchestra Piece written in 2018 for my friend Hayward Peele  murdered at the age of 33.  He was a bassist, dyed in the wool New Yorker who so many loved.  We played so much music together and hit the streets with a quintet/sextet hard in the 80s. Hayward traversed Black and White worlds with ease as he moved between Jazz and Funk.  He loved to read and philosophize.  He was deep into Mingus, Dolphy and a whole panorama of great music.  We ate allot of cheap food together through  many neighborhoods.  Illuminated, Naive, Tough, Sweet. There was a whole lot of life cut off when he went down some wrong turns away from music whose slow monetary return he grew impatient with.   The piece expresses my grief, the inexplicable feelings  a musical meditation reaches, kind of the impossibility of closure.  It needs to be performed by a real orchestra.

Elegy For Hayward Peele

This is a mockup of a recently written piece dedicated to my Father-in -law Ramon Llort Rigol.  He left Franco's Spain in the early 50s at 10 years old with his mother for Rio de Janeiro and lived a not very long tumultuous life trying to develop businesses through economic collapses always feeling as an outsider in the country his family chose.  It is for Clarinet, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass

Ramon An Uncertain Passage

Will build on this one day.  This is midi piano. From the archives

Short Prelude

A quartet of Clarinet, Violin, Viola, Cello  created with  PWGL my first more extended composition using this fantastic program.  Unfortunately it is close to extinct.

A Tendency Toward Pleasurable Outcomes

An active Guitarist/Composer and teacher , I've worked on exploding the parallels within American Jazz and Brazilian Instrumental Music. My music is often a confluence of Modern Jazz, Choro, Baiao and bop.  Composers residencies include Yaddo and MacDowell Colony. Over the years my ensembles have performed at Cornelia Street Café, Joes Pub, Jazz Forum, Barbes, Triboz/ Rio etc.. & have many recordings.  On this Soundcloud platform are examples of my expansion into chamber music and exploring the realms of CAC composition.  This has led me to explore broader themes in the last years.

Billy Newman

Popular tracks