What's Up?
“(Adam Rogers) debut album, at 36, Art of the Invisible (Criss Cross), is impressive on several counts. He’s a Guitarist with his own sound, mellow yet aggressive. He is so impressive of a player-taking his time, riding the beat, building to longish, intricate on the beat phrases…”
- Gary Giddins , Village Voice
"In terms of melodic and rhythmic clarity, Rogers has few peers on the instrument, but his staggering technique is matched by musical sensitivity and a finely honed rapport with his quintet."
- David R. Adler, Jazz times
"Intelligent, inventive, technically brilliant, Rogers in now clearly one of the finest guitarists around"
- Ray Comiskey, The Irish Times
"(an) exceptional guitarist.."
- Bob Blumenthal, Boston Globe
"One of the best guitarists of the century"
- Dresden Zeitung
Life & Work
Bio:
Adam Rogers was born and raised in New York City where he studied jazz guitar with Barry Galbraith, Howard Collins and John Scofield. During his four years at the Mannes Conservatory of Music he studied Classical Guitar with Robert Secrist and Frederic Hand. Since the beginning of his professional career he has played on over one hundred and fifty commercially released recordings and has toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia, The Middle East, South America and Russia.
Adam has been enthusiastically reviewed in the New York Times, Downbeat, Jazz Times, The Village Voice, Newsweek, Jazziz, Jazz Hot, The Chicago Sun Times, the L.A times, Jazzwise, and The New Yorker among numerous other periodicals worldwide.
For eleven years he co-led the innovative and critically acclaimed group Lost Tribe, recording three CDs and touring nationally and internationally. Adam has also been featured performing, touring and recording with artists such as Michael Brecker, Cassandra Wilson, Norah Jones, Walter Becker (of Steely Dan), Paul Simon, Regina Carter, John Zorn, Randy Brecker, The Mingus Orchestra feat. Elvis Costello, Terence Blanchard, Simon Shaheen, The Gil Evans Orchestra, John Pattitucci, Ravi Coltrane, Bill Evans, Lizz Wright, The Brecker Brothers, Jacky Terrasson, Kenny Barron, George Russell, Brian Blade, Eliane Elias, Alana Davis, David Krakauer, The Neptunes, Giora Feidman, The Saturday Night Live band, Jack Mcduff, Larry Coryell, and Ronald Shannon Jackson among others, as well as playing music for the theater with The Great Lakes Theater Company, Joseph Papp's Public Theater and The Metropolitan Opera. Since 2006 he has a full time member of Saxophonist Chris Potter’s “Underground” group.
He has also played on the soundtracks of numerous films, including Michael Almereyda ‘s Hamlet, Carter Burwell- Composer, Spike Lee’s Jim Brown: All American, Terence Blanchard – composer, and most recently Barry Levenson’s What just Happened, Marcelo Zarvos, composer.
In 2006 he produced and arranged 3 CD’s of Beatles music for the Japanese label OMG as well as recently having produced, arranged, recorded and played all the instruments on vocalist Monday Michiru’s recording “Awaken”
As a band leader and composer, Adam has had a steady output of work. His debut CD on Criss Cross Records, “Art of the Invisible” features Edward Simon-Piano, Scott Colley-bass and Clarence Penn-Drums. The follow up, “Allegory”, also on Criss Cross, features the same group with the addition of Chris Potter on Saxophone. His third release for Criss Cross, “Apparitions”, was released in April 2005. The most recent record “Time and the Infinite” featuring Scott Colley and Bill Stewart, was released in February 2007 also on Criss Cross Jazz. A trio recording, “Sight” with John Patitucci and Clarence Penn was released in May 2009. His electric project "DICE" features Fima Ephron – Bass and Nate Smith - Drums.
Lessons/Workshops:
Adam Rogers is an American guitarist specializing in post bop, contemporary jazz, classical music and mixed genres. Rogers has had a prolific session history as a recording guitarist having played on over 200 commercially released recordings. He is currently a member of the Chris Potter Underground in addition to leading his own “acoustic” jazz quartets and quintets as well as the genre bending electric trio DICE as well as being a founding member (and co leader) of the eclectic group Lost Tribe. He has also performed and or recorded with Michael Brecker, Cassandra Wilson, Walter Becker, Norah Jones, Joe Jackson, Marcus Miller, John Patitucci, Paul Simon, Ravi Coltrane, John Zorn, Donny McCaslin, David Binney, Bill Evans (saxophonist), and Regina Carter among many others. He is a highly versatile player covering many areas of music but is best known for his work in the modern jazz idiom.
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).