(Ninth of a series) Singer Lorna Cifra’s surname may have sealed her fate, but as any musician that’s ever had to make their own way in the gnarly terrain of music-making quickly finds out, a sound musical career is built on good and bad choices, a smidge of luck, and diligence of the sort that...
Tag: performer
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Portraits in Jazz: Everybody loves Rey Vinoya
(Seventh of a series) When this series started in March, drummer Rey Vinoya put himself at a distance from deadline in a mix of hesitation and bemusement. Without declining outright to be profiled, he proposed what he believed was the farthest possible date from March: “September!” he said, beaming, when I asked him in April...
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Portraits in Jazz: Alvin Cornista’s different worlds
(Third of a series) Most everything can be turned into a story if one knows how. Or a song, if we ask tenor saxophonist Alvin Cornista, whose soon-to-be-released part 1 (simply called Manila) of a double album (part 2, titled 7,000 Islands, drops next year) that contains 15 tunes written over a 2-week stretch in...
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Portraits in Jazz: Ronald Tomas, homeland and music
Second of a series “I just want to play,” says Ronald Tomas, band leader, arranger, composer, singer, and saxophonist—arguably one of the busiest musicians today who cross over jazz, R&B/ funk/rock/soul, and pop jazz stages with enviable ease, the sort for whom music is air and water. Ronald grew up in Pangasinan swaddled by music:...
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Portraits in Jazz: Tots Tolentino in the cool of the moment
(First of a series) EDITOR’S NOTE: With this piece, Jocelyn de Jesus starts a series of portraits resulting from conversations with stellar Filipino jazz practitioners—“in full bloom in their 60s and 70s,” she says, and “changing the game one gig at a time.” Mario “Tots” Tolentino’s household-name status in contemporary Philippine music is undisputed, having...