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Benjamin Shorstein
Benjamin Shorstein has had the pleasure of performing on stage with many artists including Chick Corea, Mark O’Connor, Jamison Ross, Terry Plumeri, Alphonso Horne, Scott Wilson, Juan Rollan, Rebecca Shorstein, Steve Cohn Trio, Thomas Milovac, Jarrett Carter, Jonah Pierre, Steve Strawley, Lance Reed, Milan Algood, Abigail Gruber, Mike Perez, Ty Christian, and the Andre Gruber Trio.
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Madre Vaca: Knights of the Round Table
by Jack Bowers
The legend of King Arthur and Camelot is depicted musically on Knights of the Round Table, the sixth album by the Florida-based eleven-member ensemble, Madre Vaca, whose themes are composed by drummer Benjamin Shorstein. While Knights is presented as a ten-part suite, there seems to be no connecting tissue aside from the names of individual works --"Arthur," “Camelot," “Galahad," “Merlin," “Guinevere" and “Lancelot" among them. True, there seems to be an over-all medieval vibe underlining Shorstein's music, ...
Continue ReadingMadre Vaca: The Elements
by Jack Bowers
Ambitious? How about depicting musically four basic elements--fire, water, earth, wind--and doing so with only four musicians. On its fourth recording, The Elements, the guitar-led quartet Madre Vaca endeavors to do exactly that, and in roughly forty-one minutes. Each of the album's four selections was written by a member of the group: “Fire" by drummer Benjamin Shorstein; “Water" by guitarist Jarrett Carter; “Earth" by bassist Thomas Milovac; “Wind" by pianist Jonah Pierre. So how do they fare? ...
Continue ReadingMadre Vaca: Winterreise
by Jack Bowers
For its third recording, the Florida-based jazz octet Madre Vaca has chosen to perform music by Franz Schubert—hold it; stop right there! Music by who? Yes, that's what it says—music by none other than Franz Schubert (1797-1828), an Austrian composer of what we know as classical music who in his brief lifetime wrote more than 600 secular vocal works, seven complete symphonies (and the well-known “Unfinished"), as well as sacred chorales, operas, and chamber, piano and incidental music. When did ...
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