Julius Rodriguez

Review:

This is the fourteenth in a series of special Jazz on the Tube reviews of live stream performances.

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Julius Rodriguez (who has been nicknamed “Orange Julius) is in his twenties and is in an up-and-coming jazz pianist.

He studied in the Manhattan School of Music’s precollege division starting when he was 12 and later attended Juilliard.

Since then Rodriguez, who also plays drums, has worked with such notables as Keyon Harrold, Ben Williams, Carmen Lundy, Jazzmeia Horn, Roy Hargrove, Wynton Marsalis, and Veronica Swift among others, and has performed as a member of Isaiah Barr’s Onyx Collective.

From Mar. 28, 2020, Julius Rodriguez performs an uptempo solo piano version of George Shearing’s “Conception,” tearing into the piece while often implying rather than stating the time, creating a nonstop flow of inventive ideas while never losing the beat; he concludes his performance with a relaxed version of a melodic original.

– Scott Yanow