Fellow Travelers
When the 2020 New York Winter Jazzfest picked drummer/composer Mark Guiliana as its artist in residence for 2020, the festival’s organizers asked him to enlist performers for various collaborative sets over the course of seven nights. Future-jazz quartet Kneebody was at the top of his list. The choice made sense, as these five musicians have a great deal in common.
Thrust into a brighter spotlight by his masterful playing on David Bowie’s final album, 2016’s Blackstar, Guiliana is a musician of eclectic tastes whose projects range from acoustic jazz (his quartet with saxophonist Jason Rigby, bassist Chris Morrissey, and pianist Fabian Almazan, sometimes called the Jersey Quartet after its 2017 recording Jersey) to EDM (the synth-driven Beat Music, whose most recent album Beat Music! Beat Music! Beat Music! garnered a 2020 Grammy nomination), as well as an assortment of collaborations with his wife, vocalist Gretchen Parlato.
It just so happens that Parlato is also one of four singers who appear on Kneebody’s eighth and latest studio album, 2019’s , its first to be recorded after the departure of longtime bassist Kaveh Rastegar. The band chose not to replace Rastegar; instead, drummer Nate Wood plays drums and bass , much like he does in his solo project fOUR, a man-machine meld wherein he taps bass chords with his left hand while drumming and playing keyboard with his right.
