JORGE SYLVESTER: Alto Saxophonist, Composer, Conductor, Arranger, Bandleader, Producer, Educator
Born in Colon, Panama Jorge attended the Panama Conservatory of Music and the University of Panama. He received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Music from the State University of New York College at New Paltz in 1981. A unique innovator and impressive composer and arranger in the idiom of creative music, his sound is reminiscent of Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman. Jorge has remained on the cutting edge of the creative NY Jazz scene since his arrival from Spain in 1980. Sylvester’s blend of African-Caribbean rhythms with new music is what gives him his distinguished voice.
Beginning his professional career at age 14, Jorge was leading his own Caribbean dance band, writing his own arrangements and compositions. He studied privately with renowned Panamanian jazz saxophonist, Euclides Hall. Upon the recommendation of his professor, Efrain Castro, Jorge became a regular musician in the great Panamanian pianist Victor Boa’s band. Heading for Europe in his early twenties, Sylvester spent ten years touring and recording with his ensembles and freelancing throughout Europe.
ADDITIONAL STUDIES: Mr. Sylvester studied advanced harmony with Argentinian pianist, composer Luis Vecchio in Las Palmas de Gran Canarias, Spain whose Quartet he also then recorded with. Upon his arrival to New York in 1980, he studied with Dave Holland, Oliver Lake, Steve Lacy, Ramsey Ameen, Marion Brown and many others at vibraphonist Karl Berger’s Creative Music Studio in Woodstock.
ARTIST PERFORMANCE ASSOCIATIONS: Andrew Cyrille, Craig Harris, David Murray, Oliver Lake, Monte Croft, Stefon Harris, Rodney Kendrick, Karl Berger, Carlos Garnett, Santi Debriano, Billy Cobham, Danilo Perez, poet Sekou Sundiata, The Black Rock Coalition Orchestra, Kuumba Frank Lacy’s Vibe Tribe, Next Legacy Orchestra, Joe Bowie’s Defunkt Big Band and Nora McCarthy who is a member of his group(s) The ACE (Afro- Caribbean Experimental) Collective and its extended edition with strings. Since their collaboration that began in 2000, Ms. McCarthy also co-leads several groups with Sylvester, namely: The ConceptualMotion Orchestra and A Small Dream In Red (voice and saxophone duet) A CD by the same name was released on the Sundown label in March, 2003 and in 2013, In the Language of Dreams was released on their RedZen Records label. Both CDs garnered rave reviews establishing them as one of the world’s most unique and innovative duos performing in this format and instrumentation.
TOURS/RESIDENCIES/NOTABLE CONCERTS: Andrew Cyrille at The Kitchen NYC, Europe with Joe Bowie’s Defunkt Big Band; Performances with Trombonist composer Craig Harris; Europe and Israel with the World Saxophone Quartet; Danilo Perez’s Panamanian Jazz All Stars for the Panama Jazz Festival; Podgorica, Montenegro Jazz Appreciation Month Series with A Small Dream in Red and appeared on the television show, Good Morning Montenegro; concert and recording in Linz, Austria at the Brucknerhaus Concert Hall with Jorge Sylvester ACE Collective; Vision Festival X, NYC with ConceptualMotion Orchestra; the Baha’i Center, Dizzy Gillespie Theater, NYC yearly residency from 2010 to present with CMO; and, monthly residency (both performances and workshops) at El Taller Latino Americano Arts Center, NYC with CMO featuring guest artists since 2018.
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Jorge Sylvester Spirit Driven Quintet featuring Nora McCarthy recently performed in concert at Clements Place, a jazz venue in association with Rutgers University in Newark, NJ.
Mr. Sylvester composes, arranges and conducts new music for his various groups and his ever expanding projects; performs frequently, teaches privately and conducts workshops throughout New York and elsewhere in the United States teaching his unique approach to composition using Afro- Caribbean rhythms.
DISCOGRAPHY: Mayhem at Large: Jorge Sylvester Spontaneous Expressions, release date 2021; blesSINGS with Nora McCarthy People of Peace Quintet, RedZen Records, 2016); In the Language of Dreams with A Small Dream In Red Voice and Saxophone Duo (RedZen Records, 2013); Spirit Driven with Jorge Sylvester ACE Collective (RedZen Records 2010 rel. 2013); Toward the Hill Of Joy Featuring Nora McCarthy with George Brandon Blue Unity Ensemble (Blue Unity Music, 2011); Playground with Lucian Ban & Asymmetry (Jazzaway Records, 2005);
A Small Dream in Red with A Small Dream In Red Voice and Saxophone Duo, (Sundown Jazz Records, CSU, 2003); The Mass (Palmetto Records, 2000) with the Collective Identity Saxophone Quartet featuring Sam Newsome, Aaron Stewart and Alex Harding; Another Side (CIMP Records, 2000) with tenor saxophone Ken Simon Quartet featuring drummer Barry Altschul; Magic Night (Jazz Stop Records, Madrid Spain, 1989) with the Chastang/Sylvester Sextet; Viriato Blue (Jazz Stop Records, Madrid Spain, 1983.) with Miguel Angel Chastang Quintet; The Blue Oneness of Dreams (Mouth Almighty Records, 1997) with Poet Sekou Sundiata; The Essence All Stars featuring Doug Carn, Idris Muhammed and Josh Roseman (Hip Hop Records, 1997.)
SOME REVIEWS:
JULY EDITION, 2022 CADENCE MAGAZINE_Page 75 MAYHEM AT LARGE ~ THE LAST BAHA'I JORGE SYLVESTER SPONTANEOUS EXPRESSIONS "WThis double CD Release by Jorge Sylvester Spontaneous Expressions Octet features some of the greatest long-standing innovative improvising musicians on the world stage today." This is brilliant music. Do you ever wonder how great improvisers create their work? In this double album each CD starts with a couple of solos followed by duets and ending an with octet performance. There is a spaciousness in the music that speaks to the mind. It is evident at first listen that these improvisers are also great listeners. This is pure music - unhurried - allowing itself to develop into full maturity and fruition. There’s a feeling listening to this album that you’re sitting in with the group, letting the improvisational process envelop you. These albums are really a window into the world of improvisation. It’s a world where music and songs are not created in two minutes and 58 seconds - rather the pieces are allowed to develop and take their time to create new vistas unexpected and greatly appreciated. Beauty and genius cannot be rushed and this album is a perfect example of those aspects. This album makes me feel free. Highly recommended
Zim Tarro
Jorge Sylvester Ace Collective: Spirit Driven All About Jazz By FLORENCE WETZEL, Published: November 28, 2013
In a 1967 interview with Jazz & Pop magazine, John Coltrane stated: “I know that there are bad forces, forces put here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the force which is truly for the good.” In his lifetime and beyond, Coltrane has inspired artists to infuse their work with this mission, and certainly alto saxophonist and composer Jorge Sylvester can be counted as one of Coltrane's heirs. Spirit Driven is an 86-minute sonic feast by Sylvester and his ACE Collective that shows just how music and spirituality can intertwine. This is music that invokes forces for the good, played by people who feel these forces—and it also offers a cautionary tale about what happens to the world when these forces are absent.
The ACE (Afro-Caribbean Experimental) Collective is breaking new territory with its musical amalgamation of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, the jazz tradition, and free music art-forms. Artists such as Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Dizzy Gillespie used Afro-Caribbean rhythms in their compositions, but their work didn't experiment with the pulses in these rhythms; part of what sets the ACE Collective apart is their expansion and reconfiguration of these pulses. In addition, the Collective includes poetry and storytelling in many of its pieces, and they also bring to light traditional songs from the Afro-Caribbean tradition. Clearly this music goes deep and wide, and the result is a multi-layered, multi-cultural aural banquet.
There's probably no nobler way to spend one's life than in the pursuit of making spirit manifest, to search for the good and then share it. Coltrane certainly felt this way, and it's clearly the right—perhaps the only—direction for the musicians who make up the groundbreaking ACE Collective. The music on Spirit Driven does in fact have an incredible spirit, something truly uplifting and life-affirming that's a potent layering of musical influences, cultural knowledge, and spiritual intention. The ACE Collective has brought utmost sincerity and musical skill to this recording, and the result is a multi-cultural explosion that is not to be missed.
October 4, 2013 Jazz Inside Magazine REVIEWS
Jorge Sylvester ACE Collective SPIRIT DRIVEN— Four 001. UnseenRainRecords.com www.jorgesylvesteracecollective.blogspot.com
Construction No.2; Masouc; Paulina’s Prayer; The Light of Truth’s High Noon Is Not for Tender Leaves; Obeahman; Construction No.1; To Be With You; Remember Haiti; Cycle of Life
PERSONNEL: Jorge Sylvester, alto saxophone, producer, arrangements; Nora McCarthy, vocals, producer, graphic design; Waldron Mahdi Ricks, trumpet;Pablo Vergara, acoustic piano; DonaldNicks, electric bass; Kenny Grohowski, drums. David Stoller, engineer; Ramsey Ameen, liner notes; Steve Vavagiakis, mastering
By Alex Henderson
Alto saxophonist Jorge Sylvester and singer Nora McCarthy have been collaborating musically for at least 12 years, and their collaboration continues to yield excellent results on Spirit Driven.
This two-CD set (which contains about 87 minutes worth of music) underscores the unpredictable, risk- taking nature of the Jorge Sylvester ACE Collective, which includes not only Sylvester and McCarthy, but also, trumpeter Waldron Mahdi Ricks, pianist Pablo Vergara, electric bassist Donald Nicks and drummer Kenny Grohowski. The music ranges from avant-garde jazz to post-bop, and Sylvester’s alto playing is soulful, heartfelt and convincing whether he is playing inside or outside. McCarthy’s contributions to Spirit Driven are extensive. In addition to producing Spirit Driven with Sylvester, she wrote all of the lyrics and poetry. She also composed “The Light of Truth’s High Noon Is Not for Tender Leaves,” and did the arrangement on “To Be With You.” Sylvester composed the bulk of the music on the CD—“Construction No.2” and “Paulina’s Prayer” “Masouc,” “Construction No.1,” “Remember Haiti” and “Cycle of Life” by himself. On Spirit Driven, McCarthy’s vocals can be divided into three main categories: (1) singing with lyrics, (2) wordless scat singing, and (3) spoken word poetry. And in all three, McCarthy has no problem getting her points across emotionally. It’s easy to understand why this double-disc is titled Spirit Driven: the ACE Collective’s performances have a very spiritual quality. That spiritual outlook is as evident on “Cycle of Life,” “Masouc” and “Obeahman” as it is on “The Light of Truth’s High Noon Is Not For Tender Leaves.” The latter has a spirituality that recalls the late Abbey Lincoln, and McCarthy really soars with that Lincoln-ish mood. “Remember Haiti,” one of the more avant garde offerings on Spirit Driven, is a gem. Sylvester and McCarthy wrote that piece in remembrance of the victims of the earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, Haiti in January 2010, and McCarthy expresses herself with a combination of spoken word poetry and wordless scatting.
One of the appealing things about Sylvester’s albums is his ability to incorporate a variety of world music and make it all fit together. Sylvester, who is originally from Panama but now lives in New York City (also the home of Cleveland native McCarthy) has had no problem showing audiences the relationship between African, Caribbean and Latin music. And he does exactly that on the exuberant “Obeahman,” which is full of world music vitality.
Another one of Sylvester’s strong points is his determination to be consistently musical no matter how outside a particular song might become.“Masouc,” “Remember Haiti” and“Construction No.2” are among the more outside offerings on Spirit Driven, yet all of those selections are quite musical. Some free jazz favors atonality for the sake of atonality: instead of venturing outside, the musicians stay outside. But that isn’t the approach that Sylvester is going for on this album. Sylvester, even on the most abstract parts of this album, thrives on musicality, melody and composition. He also thrives on rhythm, savoring the rhythmic traditions of the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa while maintaining his improvisatory jazz focus.
Jorge Sylvester ACE Collective Brucknerhaus Linz, December 6, 2010 ****** Those who were expecting Calypso-singing Harry Belafonte clones must have been disappointed. The pieces composed by the Panamanian saxophonist use the rhythmic tradition as a basis for extended forays into the world of the contemporary. The young drummer Kenneth Grohowski juggled the odd meters with exquisite ease. Sylvester's compositions are solid ground for exciting, improvisational excursions particularly by the singer and poet Nora McCarthy and the trumpeter Waldron Mahdi Ricks.
“Ace Collective enthusiastically received in Linz” Christoph Haunschmid, OONachrichten Kultur Medien (http://jorgesylvesteracecollective.blogspot.com/p/reviews.html)
“...Jorge Sylvester's distinctive alto saxophone sound is imbued with the volatility of Caribbean basin's complex mosaic, transformed and focused by the probing musical linguistics pioneered by the great saxophonists of modern jazz. Jorge's composer's imagination is the matchless structural coherence of his improvisational work.” Ramsey Ameen, 12/2005
“...If Ornette Coleman had be born and reared in Nassau, his music would have sounded like this.” C. Michael Bailey - All about Jazz
“ Sylvester's alto work is deeply rooted in bebop but fluent in the most modern of horn vocabularies. With this album, (In The Ear Of The Beholder) he makes his mark as one of the more advanced, imaginative voices in Afro-Caribbean jazz.” David R. Adler – All Music Guide
“...Panamanian-born, New York-honed alto saxophonist Jorge Sylvester has produced a set of challenging island-accented jazz with his aptly named, Afro-Caribbean Experimental Trio.
‘In The Ear Of The Beholder’, bespeaks variety in the form, with each track opening up a different vista. Billboard Spotlight, February 24, 2001.
“...There are no clichéd romantic notions of breezy island music on this bold adventure led by Panamanian alto saxophonist Jorge Sylvester. With his edgy rhythmic pulse and diamond-hard tone, Sylvester has crafted an album that boasts the same sort of Herculean, calypso-driven improvisations of Sonny Rollins and the lofty intentions of Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake's 1970s Arista Freedom dates.” John Murph, Jazz Times Magazine Review of
“In The Ear of The Beholder“. ..As for Sylvester, he’s one the most capable soloists holding an alto today–”Por la Clave,” for instance, is full of outright Ornette-ish inflections with ample support once again from the rhythm section. There are several gutbucket textures here that evoke the wailing harmonic breadth of some of jazz’s best improvisers, from Eric Dolphy to Sonny Simmons. It’s a restrained but flawless stream of emotive improvising and it heralds one of the greater under looked talents of the day. Jorge we never knew ye!” Joe S. Harrington – New York Press.
JORGE SYLVESTER MusiCollage
Customer Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2016 Verified Purchase
George F. Bailey: 5 stars
Panama has sent many fine strong jazz musicians to grace our shores; among them Carlos Garnett, Billy Cobham, Mauricio Smith, and Danilo Perez (and let's not forget that Eric Dolphy's parents emigrated from Panama). All of them were technically adept and showed complete mastery of the jazz idiom. Add Jorge Sylvester to that list. Jorge Sylvester is one of the overlooked jazz masters on the scene today. When I've seen him play live, I'm amazed at how good he is and also how few people there are in his audiences. His Alto saxophone playing is technically and formally tight and his range of emotion explores inside and outside as creatively as anyone out there. He can pop 16th notes like Cannonball and he can jump intervals like Dolphy while structurally, his improvisations are eminently musical. His compositions are complex, both rhythmically and harmonically. I can only guess how difficult to play they might be to even the most talented sight-reader (I gave up playing music after my high school years). My guess is that because Sylvester is dedicated to exploring his own compositions, he has not placed himself on the short-list of on-call session musicians here in his adopted home town of New York. Jorge's music on this CD is in the groundbreaking mold of the best of Blue Note in the 1960s. Claudio Roditi is especially strong throughout but his work on "Illusions" is eye opening. I've had this CD for years and it still shocks me how great it sounds. When I noticed that it had only two cursory reviews, I had to set the record straight (no pun intended). This is must listening for anyone who is looking for forward looking jazz of the kind not played by the younger generation of heralded jazz musicians we have today - at least until Kamasi Washington came along. Whereas someone like Washington is channeling the Coltrane/Sanders spectrum, Jorge Sylvester is resurrecting the spirits conjured by Dolphy, Andrew Hill and Bobby Hutcherson without sounding as if he is copying anyone.
Open your ears to "Musicollage." You will not be sorry.
“...Sylvester chose McCarthy’s voice because of its similarity in sound and spirit to the horn and for her versatility within the context of the instrumentation of the Collective as well as for her unique improvisational and interpretative abilities.”
Ramsey Ameen, A Gathering of the Tribes Magazine
Gear
I currently play a Low A Eb Selmer Alto Saxophone M-146119(1967) with an SR Technologies Alto
Legend L-85 mouthpiece with Vandoren V 16 #4 Reeds
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