LA-Based Saxophonist-Composer Joe Santa Maria Issues His “Sonic Autobiography,” The Bold and Wildly Imaginative Echo Deep

Joe Santa Maria, a fiery alto saxophonist with a strongcommand of post-bop vernacular, took a detour from earlier acoustic jazz releases The Illustrated Man (2012) and Introspection (2014) when he made Creature (2016), an absorbing, otherworldly set of electronic tracks and experimental woodwind sounds and improvisations. His new release, Echo Deep, has a foot in both these worlds, in a sense: a sonically exploratory solo voyage, though one involving other players in a plethora of roles.

“Scenes from the album are drawn from my earliest memories of sound, beauty, and humor as well as from challenging and triumphant moments in my teenage and post-college years,” Santa Maria explains. “Travels to Indonesia, Mexico, South America, and a seven-year stint living in Boston and NYC all have scenes to play on this record, which took nearly 10 years from inception to completion. The melodies and rhythms are meant to be cyclical and trancelike.”

Santa Maria holds a BFA from Berklee College of Music, an MFA from CalArts and a diploma from Houston’s famed High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (alma mater of Beyoncé, Robert Glasper, Chris Dave, Eric Harland, Kendrick Scott and countless others). “At CalArts I was welcomed into a very special and creative Los Angeles community,” he recalls. “I studied gamelan music, culminating in a trip to Bali to learn and perform an epic piece by ear. I studied African and Indian rhythmic techniques. I spent time writing and searching for a compositional voice in jazz and other genres. I had more time to work on my doubles and progressed in my flute and clarinet playing. I also started playing soprano and baritone saxophones regularly and began to deviate from only playing alto.”

Echo Deep finds Santa Maria placing these varied influences and experiences in captivating dialogue, conjuring reeds, brass and strings in varied aesthetic combinations and soundscapes. It is, quite simply, his “sonic autobiography.” Contemporary chamber music, electronica, Brazilian brass ensembles, Balkan music and other inspirations creep in, almost imperceptibly in a music that falls beyond genre. “Growing up playing in the forests and lakes of Michigan influenced the track ‘Soap Box,’” Santa Maria says, “drawing on years of enjoying string and folk music on Midwestern public radio as well as idyllic seasonal weather. ‘Apix Groob,’ a favorite of mine, reflects on a later period in high school when I was listening to Aphex Twin as regularly as John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk, andexperiencing many exciting trips and early life lessons.”

The piccolo and reed sonorities of “Pathways 1” were inspired by the flute music of Bali yet have a grand, almost organ-like quality here. “Pathways 2,” by contrast, has its origin in Mozart, with “a feeling of ascending and falling” and a growing density throughout. “Mad Max” and “Play Play” are more fiercely percussive, the former with irregular, machine-like rhythms, recalling dystopian cyberpunk scenes like “the pizza delivery driver from the beginning of Snow Crash,” Santa Maria offers, “or maybe a chase scene from Akira.” “Play Play” is less angular but still full of tension and dissonance, facilitating a nasty alto solo on an otherwise non-alto-centric release.

Although Echo Deep is a solo outing, the massed instrumental forces at times give it a big-band energy, as unconventional a band as that might be. “Lullaby” is a tableau of “a plane over water,” says Santa Maria, with “an endless soft sunset and a tired moment on a journey.” “On the Water” has a beautifullyplainspoken trumpet melody, with a striking blend of synth and horns thickening the middle section. And “Where’s Annie,” the finale, has a Twin Peaks inspiration, opening with strings before grinding into slow funk anchored by bass clarinet and trombone, not to mention atmospheric voices and surrealist noise. “Try listening at different times of day, in different situations, or sound systems,” muses Santa Maria as he sends this dazzling “sonic autobiography” out into the world.

In addition to his solo work, Joe Santa Maria performs and records with famous rock acts including Airborne Toxic Event, Daniel Platzman (Imagine Dragons), Django Django and Vampire Weekend. He has played with jazz greats Danilo Perez, James Moody, Jason Moran, Joe LaBarbera, Larry Koonse, Roy McCurdy, Vinny Golia, Kim Richmond, Bill Holman, Ron King and more, performing at The Blue Whale, Vibrato, Sam First, Disney Hall, The Greek Theater, The Lighthouse and other top LA venues. He is a member of multiple creative ensembles including the Joey Sellers Jazz Aggregation and The Lauren Baba Orchestra.

Drummer and Music Educator Dean Mucetti Releases ISOLATE//INTEGRATE With His Band Rhythm Real

Rhythm Real is the brainchild of Los Angeles drummer, bandleader, and music educator Dean Mucetti. Dean formed the band in August of 2015 as a type of workshop ensemble in order to create a way for a couple of his former middle school music students to gain playing experience after graduating. Since then, Dean Mucetti & Rhythm Real has been bringing together the talents of younger players with more experienced musicians in order to facilitate a collaborative meeting of diverse socioeconomic, cultural, and generational backgrounds. Dean would soon invite friends from his college days at the California Institute of the Arts and other musicians he knew in hopes of finding a creative meeting point between the variables of experiences. A consistency with this process of engagement over time eventually resulted in the band playing some of L.A.’s most coveted clubs such as the Baked Potato in Studio City, the Blue Whale in Little Tokyo, the World Stage in Leimert Park, and Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood.

The music itself began as a composite type of sound where the James Brown funk of Clyde Stubblefield, Bootsy Collins, and Jimmy Nolen was combined with the spontaneous music tradition of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and John Coltrane. Along with these luminaries as inspiration, Dean was also conceptually influenced by the work of modern day musician-composers such as Henry Threadgill, Steve Coleman, and Tyshwan Sorey. These influences were filtered through the band's particular methods of study, practice, and development during rehearsals one to two times a week, a schedule which has continued on for most of the band’s existence starting seven years ago.

As Dean’s former students had become quite proficient at playing a more modal groove type of music, he was hoping for them to develop a greater understanding of harmony to go along with their acquired sense of rhythm. They began putting the static groove music they were steeped in through the more complex chord changes of “jazz standards” in order to work on a deeper understanding of harmony and melody. The rhythm section, forming the backbone of the band, would then work to develop cueing systems, looping structures, and forms within forms to create a base from which spontaneous composition could flourish. Week after week, month after month, and year after year, the rhythm section under Dean’s direction would build on what they had learned through studying the music of Charles Mingus, John “Jabo” Starks, Bud Powell, Alfonso “Country” Kellum, Sonny Rollins, “Sweet” Charles Sherrell, and others. This resulted in consistent growth and change over time, with the music becoming more complex and very particular to the band itself. It was a type of progress where each stage of development became a step in an overarching process of coming into their own band’s sound.

The rhythm section for most of this time consisted of bandleader Dean Mucetti on drum set, former middle school students of Dean’s, Miguel Ortiz on bass and Adrian Villasenor on guitar; as well as, longtime friend Dore Wallace on second guitar. From early 2016 to early 2020, Rhythm Real would consistently play around Los Angeles while hosting residencies at different venues. The band was putting on shows bringing together eclectic programs of music consisting of DJs and other performers in L.A.'s beat and underground rap scene. Rhythm Real also featured some of the city’s finest improvisers as spontaneous composing collaborators in the frontline (trumpeter Jesse Seibold, saxophonists Gavin Templeton and Tom Wilson, guitarist Errol Cooney, and vocalist Oran Smith to name a few). And then, the pandemic hit.

The rhythm section would eventually move weekly rehearsals from inside their lockout studio to Dore’s backyard to be safe during the pre-vaccinated covid era. With live shows coming to a halt, the band began thinking of turning what was primarily a live ensemble into a recorded studio project. Guitarist Adrian Villasenor left the band shortly thereafter, and Jon Aparicio joined in his place on the recommendation of frequent collaborator Jesse Seibold. The rhythm section would continue to build on their previous work from over the years and come up with more original pieces to be recorded for an album. The construction of the music at this juncture involved taking the rhythms, melodies, and harmonic structures Rhythm Real had played over the years and looking at them from different angles. Whether that be playing parts backwards, sideways, upside down, or inside out all with the goal of seeing where it would take them musically. Some of the material they previously developed in live performance would be isolated and eventually integrated into whole new pieces of music. The music also became even more rhythmically charged then it had previously been, as Dean began taking orchestrated rhythmic inspiration from bands he enjoyed over the years like King Crimson, Tool, and Meshuggah. Dean started to view the four piece rhythm section as a double duo where any two players may be interacting in tandem at any given time. This development stage of the material in Dore Wallace’s backyard happened over the course of a handful of months during the pandemic in 2021, until the collective we entered into the post-vaccinated covid era.

The band then headed back into their lockout studio to continue developing the music they had been working on. Still wanting to be cautious in the enclosed space of the rehearsal studio through covid variant ups and downs, Dean had the idea of side stepping the previous octet sized band consisting of horns and vocals to work with a double keyboard configuration as the spontaneous composer-improvisers. This led to what was conceptually thought of as a triple duo (now a 6 piece ensemble) and is the line up that made it onto the album. The recording features the very talented frontline of Alex Williams on acoustic piano and Brian Hargrove on keyboards, both incredible musician-composers in their own right based in Los Angeles. Alex and Brian had to adapt to the uniquely personal environment that Dean, Miguel, Dore, and Jon had created. They both took on the challenge with a tenacious sense of play and adventure that can be heard in the amazing music they made out of the challenging rhythmic and harmonic material.

The work would come to be titled Isolation // Integration. This is in part to reflect upon the trajectory of the pandemic, to relate personal experiences of aloneness with relationship, to describe the methods of music construction, and to reference modern day psychological frameworks. The title also hopes to evoke the idea of bringing the isolated pieces of one’s life into a whole integrated system as much of the band’s trajectory was a result of Dean’s urge to bring together the different facets of his life. These seemingly separated parts ranged from his work as a public school music educator to his college experience at CalArts in addition to the inspiration he received from the great Black American Music that he so loved growing up, originally setting him on this path.

The album was recorded at Stagg Street Studios by Greg Foeller through the summer of 2021 and spring of 2022 in Van Nuys. This was a bit of a homecoming for Dean who was raised in that area of the San Fernando valley, where his music journey began. A short time after the last recording session, mixing was done by Dennis Moody at his studio in Highland Park. Dennis has worked with an extraordinary list of drummers that include Dave Weckl and Steve Gadd as well as having some history with recording Los Angeles great Horace Tapscott. This connection to Dennis’ work is special as many of his projects have involved legends the band so admires. Lastly, mastering was conducted by guitarist-composer Liberty Ellman whose own music and tenure in Henry Threadgill’s Zooid has been a constant source of inspiration over the years. 

And so here we are, and there we were, from isolation to integration with love, there and back again, and again and again and again…

Mat Muntz Leads a Band of East Coast Luminaries with an Astonishing Album Driven by a Unique Croatian Bagpipe

Bridging the worlds of contemporary composition, classic free jazz, and obscure folk traditions, Phantom Islands employs diverse sounds to construct a unified, ethereal landscape. The record is the leader debut of New York-based composer, bassist, and bagpiper Mat Muntz (of The Vex Collection), whose use of the unique Croatian bagpipe primorski meh serves as the music’s centerpiece. The instrument’s brazen timbre and alien tuning are anchored by ghostly, microtonal orchestrations for winds, guitar, and percussion, executed with sensitivity and dynamism by a skilled cast of improvisers.



The band features up-and-coming luminaries of the East Coast scene, including Yuma Uesaka on clarinet (Marilyn Crispell, Anna Webber, Ocelot) and Xavier Del Castillo on tenor sax (Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days). Guitarist Alec Goldfarb, oboist Pablo O’Connell, and drummer Michael Larocca complete the sextet to create richly textured collective improvisations.

The title Phantom Islands refers to nonexistent landmasses which were recorded on nautical maps for centuries, often with bizarre, “here be dragons” associations. By using this concept of “haunted geography” to channel maritime mythologies from around the world - Croatia, Bahrain, Okinawa - Muntz’s compositions render a correspondingly haunted musical vocabulary: a folk music from nowhere.