Willy Rodriguez - seeing sounds

Drummer-composer Willy Rodriguez proudly announces the release of his debut album Seeing Sounds. Joining the Puerto Rico-born, New York based musician on his expansive debut is trumpeter Jason Palmer, saxophonist Hery Paz, pianist Leo Genovese, bassists John Hébert and Kenneth Jimenez, and special guest artist, saxophonist Dave Liebman, and sound designer Tehn Vega.

Avant-garde philosophies provide precarious but often brilliant edges to how open or free improvisation function in Jazz. Complex, chaotic, and often dissonant, this sub-genre challenges traditional structures, and when transcendent, incorporates an advanced and unconventional level of mastery. Avant-garde artists travel to curious destinations using peculiar forms specifically designed for their mercurial adventures. In the process, audience engagement requires a nuanced understanding of tone, touch, voice and the fluid organic structures that creatively bind them all together. In this regard, drummer Willy Rodriguez has spent his entire professional career preparing to explore these unique types of musical relationships.

Born in Puerto Rico, the son of a timbalero, Rodríguez’s rhythmic journey also began on the timbales, developing hand skills by playing in Latin rock bands that made up his crash course on Puerto Rico’s remarkably diverse Afro-Caribbean musical culture. High school brought an introduction to the drums as formal training blossomed into an invitation to a coveted summer program at the Berklee College of Music in San Juan, Puerto Rico. By the time he left the island to attend Berklee, Rodríguez had already dabbled in pop, rock, metal and Latin Jazz. Humbled by Boston’s deep Jazz drum culture, Rodríguez dove head first into his studies absorbing the influences of legends like Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, Roy Haynes, Jack DeJohnette and Terri Lyne Carrington. Rodríguez eventually settled in New York City, where he currently resides. Over the course of his twenty-year career, including his decade in New York, Rodriguez has worked with an expansive list of jazz heavyweights including George Garzone, Melissa Aldana, John Ellis, and more.