Rabbit Hole Sessions with Abe Ovadia

EPISODE 51 - JJ Fajardo

JJ Fajardo is a talented drummer originally from Denver, Colorado, who comes from a family of musicians and began playing club gigs before his teens. While attending the Denver School of the Arts, he showcased his exceptional talent as part of the Jazz Workshop Orchestra, competing in the prestigious Essentially Ellington Jazz Festival Competition. During his high school years, he also earned spots in the Colorado All-State Jazz Band and the 2004 Mile High All-Star Big Band, further solidifying his place as a rising star in the jazz world.
In addition to his early accomplishments, JJ performed professionally with Denver's acclaimed Latin jazz group Amanecer, gaining valuable experience and recognition. His dedication and skill earned him the prestigious Presidential Scholarship to Berklee College of Music in 2005/2006, where he studied alongside fellow drummer Ayeisha Mathis, focusing on performance and music business/management.
Now residing in Florida, JJ has expanded his musical horizons, playing with a variety of groups spanning jazz, Latin, and contemporary music styles. His career has taken him around the world on tours, sharing his dynamic drumming and musical versatility with audiences globally. JJ continues to inspire with his artistry, blending his deep roots in jazz with a passion for exploring diverse musical genres.
 

EPISODE 50 - Mike DiRubbo

Mike DiRubbo: A Saxophonist Supreme
 
In a jazz world of questionable infrastructure, shrinking media and variable degrees of artistic taste, one thing remains clear: New York City-based alto saxophonist, bandleader, composer and educator Mike DiRubbo has been the most swinging and soulful artist on his instrument for nearly 30 years. 
 
His new CD, Inner Light - his tenth recording as a leader,  is proof positive of his stature as a saxophone colossus. The 11-track, 65 minute recording features DiRubbo backed by longtime partners, organist Brian Charette, drummer Jongkuk Kim, and guitarist Andrew Renfroe. DiRubbo’s piercing and poetic sax tones have never sounded better. He’s supported by a rhythm section that recalls the searing sound of the legendary Newark organist Larry Young. The CD captures DiRubbo in a variety of Afro-Latin, 4/4, ballad and quiet storm moods and grooves, and it also features his first single, the radio friendly midtempo number, “Love the Same.”
 
The new recording by DiRubbo is his latest stop on his road to jazz enlightenment that began in New Haven, CT when he first started playing the clarinet in the 4th grade and switched to alto saxophone. His musical life changed when he came under the tutelage of alto sax master and educator Jackie McLean. He studied at McLean’s Institute of Jazz of the Hartt School, University of Hartford,  and graduated with a Bachelor of Music in 1992. He also earned a Master of Music in 2018 from SUNY College at Purchase.
 
DiRubbo moved to New York City in 1997, and quickly established himself as a leader and a sideman with  Al Foster, Jim Rotondi, Steve Davis, Cecil Payne, Tony Reedus, Joe Farnsworth, David Hazeltine, Brian Lynch, Michael Weiss, Carl Allen, Essiet Essiet and Harold Mabern. 
 
DiRubbo’s nine previous recordings as a leader from 1999 to 2018 include: From the Inside Out, Keep Steppin’, Human Spirit, New York Accent: Live at the Kitano,  Repercussion, Chronos, Four Hands, One Heart, Threshold and Mike DiRubbo Quartet – “Live at Smalls.” DiRubbo has been featured in articles, reviews, and interviews in magazines such as Jazziz, Hot House, JazzTimes, Down Beat and  JazzWise. He’s also a perennial presence in The Down Beat Critics Poll in the Rising Star: Alto Saxophone category. 
 
DiRubbo has been a teaching artist at the Litchfield Jazz Camp for 27 years, and more recently at the Stanford Jazz Workshop. He is currently an online adjunct professor at Saint Leo University.
 
As his music and accomplishments make clear: Mike DiRubbo will be a steady guide as we navigate the shape of jazz to come in this post-COVID world. 
 
Mike DiRubbo is a Yanagisawa Saxophone artist, and uses Theo Wanne Mouthpieces and RW Reeds.
 

EPISODE 49 - Dan Pugach

Dan Pugach is a GRAMMY® Award nominated drummer and composer, a three-time recipient of the ASCAP Foundation Jazz Composer Award, a winner of the BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize/Manny Albam Commission as part of the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop, and a Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Residency Program participant at the Kennedy Center (where he worked with Curtis Fuller, Nathan Davis and George Cables). He was the featured drummer on the 2024 GRAMMY® Award winning album “How Love Begins,” co-produced by Nicole Zuraitis and Christian McBride.Dan is the leader of The Dan Pugach Nonet and the Dan Pugach Big Band, playing his original music and arrangements. The Nonet and Big Band tour regularly, and have played at Bird’s Eye Basel, The Zone in Tel Aviv, Blue Note Jazz, Birdland Jazz Club, The 55bar, Smalls Jazz Club, The Jazz Loft, The Jazz Estate, Stowe Jazz Festival, and esteemed Performing Arts Centers across the country.Dan’s debut nonet album, “Plus One” (2018), was released on UNIT Records and charted on jazz radio in the top 20. The album includes Dan’s arrangement of Jolene (Dolly Parton), which was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award (Best Arrangement, Instruments with Vocals) alongside vocalist Nicole Zuraitis.Dan currently lives in both Brooklyn, NY and Connecticut. Born in Israel, he served as the drummer for The Air Force Band in the IDF while attending the Rimon School of Jazz at the same time.  Dan moved to the United States in 2006 and received a Bachelor of Music Degree from Berklee College of Music, where he studied with Terri Lynn Carrington, Hal Crook, and Joe Lovano. He received his M.A in music from the City College of New York, where he studied with Mike Holober and Scott Reeves.His latest Big Band album, “Bianca Reimagined,” releases August 23, 2024 on Outside in Music featuring his original compositions.
 

EPISODE 48 - Davy Mooney

Davy Mooney is a jazz guitarist from New Orleans who records for Sunnyside Records and is Associate Professor of Jazz Studies and head of the jazz guitar program at the University of North Texas. He has recorded six CDs as a leader, and many others as a sideman. His latest Sunnyside CD, Live at National Sawdust, was recorded live in Brooklyn, NY with Brian Blade, Jon Cowherd, John Ellis, and Matt Clohesy. In 2018 he recorded Benign Strangers, a collaboration with Japanese drummer Ko Omura (also on Sunnyside), and toured Japan to promote the release in the summer of 2018. His previous Sunnyside releases are 2017's Hope of Home, and 2012's Perrier St. In promotion of these CDs, Mooney has toured the US extensively, as well performed in Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Myanmar. Mooney's first book for Mel Bay, a guitar and improvisation instructional volume entitled Personalizing Jazz Vocabulary, was published in 2019. Mooney has a PhD in jazz performance from NYU, and wrote a dissertation on the early 1960s work of Joe Pass entitled "Joe Pass's Catch Me!, For Django, and Joy Spring: Transcription and Analysis." He placed third in the 2005 Thelonious Monk International Guitar Competition, and studied at the Monk Institute of Jazz Performance from 2007 to 2009, under artistic director Terence Blanchard. The Monk group worked with many jazz legends-including Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Ron Carter-and toured Panama and India. Mooney received his master's degree from the University of New Orleans in 2005. Shortly thereafter he relocated to New York City and performed at clubs such as the 55 Bar, The Bar Next Door, The Blue Note, and Smalls. In 2006 he recorded a duo guitar CD with John Pizzarelli entitled Last Train Home. The following year he recorded Astoriano, released on the Japanese label LateSet Records. Mooney has also made the foray into the literary world by self-publishing two novels: 2017's Annalee and 2012's Hometown Heroes.

EPISODE 47 - Luke Sellick

LUKE SELLICK is a bassist, composer, teacher and recording artist. Hailing from Winnipeg, Canada, Luke is now a mainstay on the NYC music scene, and bassist-of-choice of many preeminent jazz artists including Monty Alexander, Russell Malone, Benny Golson, and others.
 
Luke’s musical education began in Canada, where he was home-schooled, and then attended the University of Manitoba’s jazz program. In 2012 he moved to New York to pursue his Master’s degree at The Juilliard School, where he was mentored by legendary bassist Ron Carter. Luke received his ‘on-the-job’ training as a member of the Johnny O’Neal trio, with whom he performed weekly at NYC jazz clubs Smoke, Smalls and Mezzrow for several years.
 
In 2017 Luke released his debut album ALCHEMIST, followed by his CHRISTMAS EP. His latest project SMALL VACATION is a duo with guitarist Andrew Renfroe, featuring music by Neil Young, Tom Petty, Dolly Parton and others. He is currently based in Harlem, and has performed worldwide with artists including George Coleman, Houston Person, Kenny Barron, Jimmy Greene, Renee Rosnes, Ron Blake, Lewis Nash, Alina Engibaryan, Carl Allen, Peter Bernstein, Donald Vega, Mike LeDonne and a great many others.
 
In addition to his busy performance schedule, Luke is active as a teacher and clinician, and has worked with various colleges, private and public schools. He can also often be heard at his church in NYC, CityLight. His non-musical passions include hockey, aerial photography, canoeing and fishing. Luke’s musical philosophy is epitomized in the words of J.S. Bach, that “the end of all music is none other than glory of God and the refreshment of the spirit”.

EPISODE 46 - Dave Pietro

Dave Pietro has been on the New York music scene since 1987. A native of Southboro, Massachusetts, his talents as a saxophonist, doubler, composer, and educator have made him an in-demand musician who has performed at jazz clubs, jazz festivals, schools and concert halls in more than thirty countries throughout the world.
Dave is a member of the Grammy Award-winning Maria Schneider Orchestra and the Grammy nominated groups - the Gil Evans Project and Darcy James Argue's Secret Society.  From 1994-2016 he played lead alto saxophone and recorded seven albums with the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra. He has also performed, and/or recorded with the bands of Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton, Maynard Ferguson, The Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, John Fedchock, Mike Holober, and Pete McGuinness among others. Pietro has performed with many other well-known musicians such as Louis Bellson, Ray Charles, Harry Connick Jr., Liza Minnelli, and John Pizzarelli.  He has also studied East Indian music and performed with various groups led by Indian tablist Sandip Burman. 
Professor Pietro has released ten albums as a leader with many of the top musicians in jazz including Rez Abbasi, Helio Alves, Jay Anderson, David Berkman, Brian Blade, Johnathan Blake, Adam Cruz, Duduka DaFonseca, Billy Drummond, Dave Holland, Pete McCann, Michael Rodriguez, Alex Sipiagin, Bill Stewart, Gary Versace, Johannes Weidenmueller, Scott Wendholt and Kenny Werner. His latest album, The Talisman (Steeplechase-2024), was described by jazz critic Ken Dryden as “a masterful album that is not only fueled by its lush harmony, but by its infectious rhythmic undercurrent.” Thomas Conrad of Stereophile said "Pietro has emerged as a leader of importance" in his review of Hypersphere (ArtistShare-2020). Other releases receiving critical acclaim include New Road: Iowa Memoirs (ArtistShare-2017), Embrace: Impressions of Brazil (A Records-2004), and Standard Wonder: The Music of Stevie Wonder (A-Records), which was voted one of the top 10 jazz CD’s of 2001 by Bob Blumenthal of the Boston Globe and Bill Milkowski of Jazz Times. Dave also co-led an international quartet "The New York-Tokyo Connection" (NYTC) with pianist Jonathan Katz. 
Dave was selected as a semi-finalist for the first two Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Saxophone Competitions (1991 & 1996) and was a finalist in the 1995 JAZZIZ Magazine "Woodwinds on Fire" talent search. In 1996 he was the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2005 and 2007 he received grants from Chamber Music America’s New Works Programs to compose and perform his new extended work “The Chakra Suite” (2008-Challenge) which was voted one of the top CD's of 2008 by All About Jazz .
Pietro received a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education from North Texas State University where he toured and recorded four albums with the school's One O'Clock Lab Band. He holds a Master of Arts degree in jazz composition from New York University where he studied with renowned jazz composer Jim McNeely. Dave is sponsored by D'Addario Woodwinds and the Conn-Selmer Instrument Company.

EPISODE 45 - Orlando le Fleming

Among the most proficient and accomplished bassists in the field of contemporary jazz, Orlando le Fleming's virtuoso technique, boundless creativity and powerful beat are those of a musician who has found himself, humbly, occupying a space in the uppermost stratum of American improvised music. 
Orlando's facility as an improviser and capacity as a team player were first honed not on the bandstand, nor in the practice room, but on the cricket pitch. Originally from the UK, Orlando seemed destined for an athletic career, and was briefly a professional cricketer, until he was granted a place at London’s Royal Academy of music, and his lifelong passion for music won out. 
Le Fleming's 2003 move to New York City was a timely one. Soon after arriving stateside, Orlando joined Jane Monheit's band, consequently sharing the bass duties on her 2004 release Taking a Chance on Love with Ron Carter and Christian McBride; the year following, he recorded with jazz legend Jimmy Cobb on his Marsalis Music Honors release. In the years since, leaders as diverse as Branford Marsalis, Joey Calderazzo, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Bill Charlap, Billy Cobham, Seamus Blake, Jeff “Tain” Watts, and David Sanchez have relied on Le Fleming's firm beat and eloquent counterpoint to propel their rhythm sections forward. 
While he succeeds as a sideman, it is as a leader that Orlando le Fleming truly shines. From Brooklyn With Love is a living document of Orlando's original compositions, as performed by his 2010 quartet. Recorded in concert at storied Park Slope hangout Freddy's, it features saxophonist Will Vinson, guitarist Lage Lund, and drummer Antonio Sanchez. Riding the high acclaim of this initial release, Lund, Vinson, and Le Fleming would go on to form the drum-less OWL Trio, whose eponymous 2013 debut was hailed by critics and listeners alike. Downbeat declared “Everything about this album,which should contend for debut of the year honors,is a resounding success. The music swings effortlessly, every utterance is gorgeous and the recording is intimate and beautiful." 
More recently, Orlando has become recognized as a keen doubler: 2016 brought a wide array of opportunities as an electric bassist, from accompanying Tony-winning vocalist Leslie Odom, Jr, to navigating the shifting metrics of Wayne Krantz's legendary 55 Bar residency. His latest endeavor, Romantic Funk, presents a pastiche of classic fusion sounds and ideas, updated by Le Fleming's signature palette of polyrhythm and abstract exploration. 2020 saw the release of Romantic Funk’s second album - The Unfamiliar, and also a new OWL Trio record featuring the virtuoso vocalist, Kurt Elling. In 2022 Orlando was part of a collaborative standards album featuring jazz legends Mark Turner and Jeff “Tain” Watts and in 2024 he will release his third Romantic Funk album, featuring a guest appearance from Coldplay’s Chris Martin.
 

EPISODE 44 - Andy Bianco

Andy Bianco, a jazz artist, composer, educator, and advocate hailing from New York City, boasts an impressive career that spans performances with renowned artists such as Angie Stone, Deborah Cox, Kandace Springs, Ray Chew, Elle Varner, and Bob Moses. His musical journey has graced esteemed venues worldwide, including ABC Television's Good Morning America, Billboard Live Osaka/Tokyo, The Howard Theater, Blues Alley, and The Blue Note, among others.As the guitarist for Grammy-winning R&B artist Elle Varner, Andy has toured extensively across the USA and Japan, leaving an indelible mark on stages like the Essence Festivals in New Orleans, the BET Awards, and the Richmond Jazz Festival. His prowess as a performer extends to prestigious jazz hotspots, including Chris' Jazz Cafe, Smoke Jazz Club, and The Zinc Bar.A three-time finalist in the USA Songwriting Competitions, Andy has garnered domestic and international critical acclaim for his three official jazz album releases. Downbeat Magazine, Elsewhere New Zealand, Bop-N-Jazz, and The New York City Jazz Record are among the publications praising his work. His latest album, "NYC Stories," received accolades for its dynamic jazz compositions and triumphant narrative.In addition to captivating audiences with his music, Andy's advocacy for music and education is evident in his creation of the Phillip Bianco Memorial Music Scholarship. In honor of his late father, this scholarship, awarded annually through the Keynotes Foundation Scholarship Competition in Pittsburgh, supports young adult music students.Andy's impact extends beyond the stage; his music has been licensed for use in Hollywood films and prime-time network television. He has completed a 6-month tour of New Zealand and Japan as the guitarist for the critically acclaimed stage production "Empire." As a private instructor with New York Jazz Workshop and a teaching artist with Wingspan Arts and Midori & Friends in NYC, Andy shares his passion for music with aspiring talents.Highlighted by press reviews praising his "deliciously dynamic jazz" and the triumph-over-adversity theme in "NYC Stories," Andy continues to craft stories through his music. His guitar work has been described as having a "fantastic sound & boundless imagination & fire" by jazz guitar masters Peter Bernstein and Ben Monder.Endorsed by ESP Guitars, Godin Guitars, Reunion Blues Cases, and Dean Markley Strings, Andy Bianco stands as a compelling force in the world of jazz, leaving an indelible mark on stages, classrooms, and scholarship programs alike.

EPISODE 43 - Charlie Scheft

Charlie Scheft is a dynamic drummer hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio, now making his mark on the New York City jazz scene. Known for his versatility and electrifying performances, Charlie has played at prestigious events like the Newport Jazz Festival and graced iconic venues such as Smalls, Zinc Bar, and Minton’s Playhouse. His ability to seamlessly blend tradition with modern influences has made him a sought-after collaborator among some of jazz’s most exciting musicians. With a growing reputation as a powerhouse drummer, Charlie continues to captivate audiences and solidify his place in the jazz world.
 

EPISODE 42 - RIch Mollin

International bandleader, performing and recording artist Rich Mollin has been a part of the music industry since 1980. He has been a leader of modern musical groups including show bands, Rock, Jazz, R&B, Blues, Funk, and Free Improvisation ensembles. Sideman and Bandleader on Norwegian Cruise lines, Costa lines, Holland America, and Carnival lines, Rich worked on stage with hundreds of headline acts. As Bandleader for Michael Carney Music in Manhattan, Rich led a Jazz trio 6 nights a week for 9 years with many of New York's finest pianists and drummers. His trio performed for dignitaries, heads of state, and jazz fans in venues throughout the east coast. He currently heads one of the largest bass studios in the SUNY system teaching String Bass and Electric Bass. He also began the jazz improvisation studies class and performs regularly in the area now in a variety of genres with The Catskill Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Theatre, Mask and Hammer Productions and innumerable jazz settings and recording as house Bassist with Sonart recording studios in Woodstock, NY. As well as other projects.