back to
ears&eyes Records
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Collage

by Juanma Trujillo

/
  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Artwork by Flóres Soláno. Each pre-order comes with an instant gratification downloadable track.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Collage via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $12 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

      name your price

     

1.
Araya 04:25
2.
Rebote 03:39
3.
El Santo 07:24
4.
Himno 04:45
5.
El Chivo 06:11
6.
Simultaneo 06:29

about

Sur America: ahora podes pagar albumes digitales con tu cuenta de MercadoPago y pagá lo que te parezca… el precio lo ponés vos aca: www.earsandeyesrecords.com/mercadopago

Juanma Trujillo - guitar & compositions
Sean Conly - bass
Francisco Mela - drums

Juan Manuel Trujillo is a big fan of classic cinema. He cites the films of David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson, Akira Kurosawa, Agnès Varda, and Ingmar Bergman to name just a few of the directors he especially admires. “I don’t know how that stuff translates into my music-making,” he says, “but it makes me think about aesthetics and pacing, and it makes my life better.” Perhaps a link can be found in the undeniable dramatic elements in his music: clear expressions of mood and tone, a focused narrative threading its way to the inexorable conclusions of his solos and compositions, and something crucial to any good filmmaker or musician–a beating heart for beauty and meaning that transcends our challenges.

Trujillo’s heart started beating more quickly at an early age, listening to the many records his father, an amateur guitarist, and bassist had collected at their home in Caracas, Venezuela. There was a healthy mix of classical music, classic rock, salsa, and of course jazz, starting with the big three of Miles, Coltrane, and Bird. After learning how to play drums and guitar, enhanced by university-grade music lessons, Trujillo made it to the United States to take bonafide college classes as a music major, where he added another jazz hero to his list: Paul Motian. That drummer opened him up to an entirely new world of improvisers and composers, from the now-canonical sounds of Jarrett, Haden, Redman, and Ornette to the next generation of innovators like Geri Allen, Frisell, Lovano, Zorn, Tim Berne, and Joey Baron, with Frisell being the bridge to yet another generation that Trujillo still listens to Tony Malaby, Jakob Bro, Steve Cardenas, Mat Maneri, etc. “It’s a typical jazz listening journey, one person takes you to the other and before you know it you’ve listened to a lot of music,” he says.

All those influences have melted into a singular, personal voice that emanates from Trujillo’s guitar, receiving a well-deserved spotlight on this latest recording of his. The six pieces here are not overlong, nor do they encompass within themselves some grander epic; they are more like a collection of short films or just pictures, even snapshots. The guitarist/ composer thus decided to name this collection for what it is: a Collage. Yet taken as a whole, they surely combine to focus a lens into the artist’s sensibilities, his musical mind, and yes, his heart.

Trujillo has lived in New York for what is now approaching eight years, and as it is with any artist in the big city, it can be a challenge to both survive and realize your creative goals. He has come to understand he can have a different trajectory from his peers and those he admires, saying, “I make an effort to concentrate on working on my music, and find whatever ways I have available to make it happen,” doing so while canceling out the “noise” surrounding concerns about one’s “career success” that becomes ever more deafening, to the point when you can no longer hear the music.

One of the ways he moves ever forward is to create projects for himself; recordings or gigs that create a deadline for him to prepare the music. “I’ve found that I improve much more from this process than from working on music in the abstract,” says Trujillo. “I believe that you get a much better sense of what you need to work on from a real-life application.” For this project, he invited two others to record with him, whom he thinks of as “master musicians” that would challenge him to rise to the occasion. Trujillo has played with the drummer Francisco Mela in a trio for the past two years, and they just released their first album [MPT Trio Volume 1, 2021 577 Records]. Mela, who has played with luminaries ranging from Lovano to Gary Bartz to McCoy Tyner, was the first “seasoned” musician to hire Trujillo regularly, helping the guitarist to reach new levels of excellence. “His playing is so buoyant and strong that it has required me to build up a level of confidence in which I can’t second guess me while playing–I have to play with commitment,” he states, adding, “Nothing I could have possibly done could have prepared me to learn how to play with him.” Through Mela, Trujillo met and played with bassist Sean Conly, who Mela called upon at times to provide a low balance point for the normally bass-less MPT Trio. Of Conly, he says admiringly, “I find that playing with him is effortless, there’s so much clarity in the way he navigates the music that you feel at ease taking chances. Even in this more open and flexible way that we dealt with time…with Sean, I always felt it was very clear where the cadences were, where the form was, and it’s liberating as an improviser.”

This trio is indeed open, flexible, and timeless in the literal sense. Yet each piece has an incredible, internal swing of momentum, despite the varying moods and colors from piece to piece. “Araya,” inspired by a Venezuelan film of the 50s by Margot Benacerraf, is an exploratory, spacious piece balanced out by the density of the shifting harmonies over various pedal points. “Rebote” is Spanish for “bounce,” and the band does just that with short, punchy accents, volleying succinct ideas at each other in a three-way game of hot potato. The playfulness is cut short by Trujillo’s opening guitar wail in “El Santo,” where he summons a remarkable amount of patience with his ideas, allowing the beautiful terror of his distorted, blues-inflected sound to slowly turn the screws to painful ecstasy.

“Himno” means “hymn,” moving past the past chaos to something more akin to a chorale with triadic harmonies, just not quite as peaceful as its Sunday morning namesake would imply. “El Chivo” is the only completely improvised piece on the album, defined early on by a restless harmonic scratching of a bow on the string by Conly, some rather comical chromatic mumbles by Trujillo, and an insistent, incessant pitter-patter by Mela. The album concludes with “Simultaneo,” a poetic folk melody composed by Trujillo that is poignant and nostalgic, with faint echoes of bygone classics: “Mona Lisa,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” “La Vie En Rose,” “Young at Heart.” Perhaps Trujillo’s tune shall one day be added to the Great Latin American Songbook.

The bassist, bandleader, and jazz mentor John Clayton often state that it’s perhaps folly to try to intentionally “find your own voice,” because an artist might not recognize his or her own voice that is a product of all the voices they have listened to and absorbed. Juanma Trujillo seems to agree with this point of view, stating, “I don’t know that I can say I have a voice, but I think that I love to create. And I think I’ve set up my life around being able to keep creating music. I think that’s the biggest thing, to just insist on creating.” And in doing so, his voice will be recognized by others, growing clearer with each creation.

–Gary Fukushima
Los Angeles, March 2022

credits

released July 15, 2022

Produced by Juanma Trujillo
Executive produced by Matthew Golombisky
Recorded and mixed by Christopher Gilroy at Douglass Recording, Brooklyn NY USA
Mastered by Eivind Opsvik at Greenwood Underground
Artwork by Flóres Soláno
Photos by Kenneth Jimenez

Links:
Website: juanmatrujillo.com
BandCamp: juanmatrujillo.bandcamp.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/juanmatrujillomusic
Instagram: www.instagram.com/guanbanoel/
Twitter: twitter.com/juanmat68
SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/juanmatrujillo

ears&eyes Records: www.earsandeyesrecords.com, earsandeyesrecords.bandcamp.com, twitter.com/earseyesRecords, soundcloud.com/earseyesrecords, facebook.com/earsandeyesrecords, instagram.com/earsandeyesrecords, youtube.com/c/earseyesRecords

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Juanma Trujillo Brooklyn, New York

Since moving to New York in 2014 Juan Manuel Trujillo has been an active member of the jazz and improvised music scene playing in groups with artists such as Francisco Mela, Ras Moshe, Mimi Jones and Guillermo Gregorio among others.Trujillo has developed a personal playing style that embraces many musical lineages from jazz, rock and latin american music to improvised music and noise. ... more

contact / help

Contact Juanma Trujillo

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Juanma Trujillo, you may also like: