Jay Azzolina on Making a Scene
PRESENT TENSE
TRRcollective
Jay Azzolina, guitar; Joe (Sonny) Barbato, accordion/piano; Dave Zinno, bass; Rafael Barata, drums/percussion.
You may recognize the name Jay Azzolina as the jazz-fusion guitarist who worked with the Grammy Award-winning group ‘Spyro Gyra.’ This is Azzolina’s fifth album release as a bandleader.
Azzolina relocated to the United Kingdom in August of 2024 and has established himself with a group of musicians based in Britain and Wales. He brings a soulful blend of cultures to this project, all wrapped in a jazzy soundscape. The addition of Joe (Sonny) Barbato on accordion adds a fresh spice to Azzolina’s quartet.
In 1995, Jay Azzolina received his M.F.A. degree from the Conservatory of Music at Purchase, New York. In 1997, he became a member of the John Patitucci Band and was part of that aggregation on their albums “Past Tense” and “Live at One Station Plaza” (2002) and “The Rolling Stones Project” in 2005. He also played on a couple of Michael Franks records. This current album release issues in a whole new “Present Tense” for this talented guitarist.
“So much of our lives as humans is taken over by reliving the past and/or worrying about the future. It so often seems that we aren’t really living in the present. For me, writing and performing music automatically places one in the present. It’s the default tense, and I guess I want to emphasize the importance of it on this recording,” Azzolina shares in his ‘one sheet’ press release.
