“Something about the sound Mike DiRubbo elicits from the alto saxophone – deep, dark, immense, with a machete edge that denotes a ready-for-anything urban sensibility – immediately grabs the ear. It’s a sound familiar to the cream of New York’s hardcore jazz community since the mid-‘90’s” – Ted Panken
 

“He has his own unique sound on the saxophone…his expansive musical vocabulary exhibits a solid foundation in the bebop tradition that has been judiciously elevated through a liberal addition of post-Coltrane modality ”- Russ Musto
 

"Something in DiRubbo’s tone, pacing and phrasing invites you to focus in and listen. It’s as if he has an internal reserve of wisdom and purpose, some burnished core of inner knowing."

- Ken Micallef

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“Mike DiRubbo is an energetic and bop-literate alto saxophonist.”
- Nate Chinen

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Celebrating his tenth release as a leader, alto saxophonist Mike DiRubbo releases his highly anticipated new project, Inner Light, on TRRcollective. Fronting a new quartet featuring organist Brian Charette, drummer Jongkuk Kim, and guitarist Andrew Renfroe, Mike and Co. invite you to join them for an hour of musical storytelling of relatable life experiences.

The eleven tracks on Inner Light cover a lot of ground in 65 minutes. Wasting no time with warmups, the quartet drops into high gear immediately with “JK in NYC,” as Charette channels Larry Young and Keith Emerson in a Hammond masterclass. “Scrollin’ and Trollin’,” a metaphor for online life, packs a long message into four minutes before the explosive facemelter “The Muse,” a knotty micro-epic with high-caliber playing from the entire ensemble, and a stunning solo from Renfroe. Even as the band stretches out on long, evocative journeys like “The Moment Before Sunrise,” the performances celebrate memorable melodies with as much vigor as the edge-of-your-seat musicianship. The straightforward beauty of “Love the Same”— celebrating disability inclusion, love, and support for differently-abled persons — is a powerful reminder that clarity and complexity can not only co-exist but augment and amplify one another.