[TR24][OF] Diego Rivera - Mestizo - 2022 (Latin Jazz)

Diego Rivera, tenor saxophone
Alex Sipiagin, trumpet
Art Hirahara, piano
Boris Kozlov, bass
Rudy Royston, drums, percussion

Diego Rivera
A world-class musician, composer, arranger and educator, Diego Rivera has entertained audiences for over 20 years. Rivera is known for his muscular tone and unique blend of straight-ahead jazz fused with music inspired by his Latino background and heritage. He is a tenured Associate Professor of Jazz Saxophone at Michigan State University where he also serves as Associate Director of Jazz Studies.
Rivera was born in Ann Arbor, MI and raised ‘just up the road’ in East Lansing, MI. Born into a Mexican-American family, his Chicano heritage has always been important to him and shaped his creative endeavors. His parents named him after the famed muralist, Diego Rivera. A trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts at a young age inspired him to make his own mark with the Saxophone rather than the brush. He attended Michigan State University where he studied with Andrew Speight, Branford Marsalis, Ron Blake and Rodney Whitaker.
In 1999, he began his professional and touring career with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra on their Big Band ‘99 tour. Since that maiden voyage, he has performed concerts at the most prestigious venues and festivals across the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. He currently leads his own group, The Diego Rivera Quartet. Rivera has also toured with GRAMMY-Award winning vocalist, Kurt Elling, JUNO-Award winning Canadian Jazz Vocalist, Sophie Milman and The Rodney Whitaker Quintet. He is a member of the The Ulysses Owens Jr. Big Band (New York, NY), the Jazz @ Dr. Phillips Center Orchestra (Orlando, FL) and the Gathering Orchestra (Detroit, MI). He has also performed with artists: Ellis Marsalis, Christian McBride, Wycliffe Gordon, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, the Gerald Wilson Big Band and the Lincoln Center Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra.
Rivera has several credits to his name as a recording artist, composer and arranger. His newest solo project Indigenouswas released in 2021 on Posi-Tone Records. According to executive producer and label co-owner, Marc Free, Indigenous “…explores the ‘Indigenous’ multi-cultural roots of our human family…”. Indigenous climbed to #7 on the JazzWeek Radio Charts. His debut release on Posi-Tone, Connections, quickly gained attention when it hit the JazzWeek Radio charts as the “Highest Debut”. Rivera’s first recording, Hercules was released in 2006 on his record label, Rivera Records. His sophomore release, The Contender (D- Clef Records 2013) received national critical acclaim reaching the Top 10 on the JazzWeek Radio Charts. He has also appeared on several recordings as a sideman on the Posi-Tone, Mack Avenue and Detroit Music Factory Record Labels.
An avid composer and arranger, Rivera has written arrangements for various recordings, projects and artists most notably for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s “Motor City Jazz” concert. A tribute to the music and musicians of Detroit. His arranging work can be heard on recordings by: Carl Allen-Rodney Whitaker, Get Ready (2007) and Work To Do (2008); Ulysses Owens Jr., Onward & Upward (2014); The New Century Quintet, The Time Is Now (2014); Michael Dease, Decisions (2015)/Bonafied (2018) and most recently on the Ulysses Owens Jr. Big Band debut recording, Soul Conversations (2021).
Rivera is a passionate educator and has presented masterclasses at schools and universities both in the United States and abroad. He is Associate Professor of Jazz Saxophone and Associate Director of Jazz Studies at Michigan State University’s College of Music. In 2019 he was awarded the Dortha J. and John D. Withrow Teaching Award, the College of Music’s highest honor for excellence in teaching and scholarly achievement. He is musical director of the award-winning ensemble, MSU Jazz Octet I, the College of Music’s premiere Jazz Combo made up of the Jazz Studies Program’s most talented student-musicians. Several of Professor Rivera’s former students enjoy careers as professional musicians performing with artists such as: Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Birdland Big Band, The Count Basie Orchestra, The DIVA Jazz Orchestra and the multi-GRAMMY Award winning group, Snarky Puppy.

With a stunning mixture of grace and power, tenor saxophonist Diego Rivera transcends cultural boundaries to deliver an emphatic message of intelligence and inclusivity on his latest release "Mestizo." Critical listeners may appreciate these performances as a series of engaged discussions employing the repartee of context and contrast between the leading voices of the horns and the affectionate support and retort from their immaculate rhythm section of pianist Art Hirahara, bassist Boris Kozlov, and drummer Rudy Royston. This assemblage of bright moments is also admirably enhanced by the presence of trumpet phenomenon Alex Sipiagin, who joins Rivera as his front line aide-de-cam, providing musical offerings of incisive intensity that steadily serve to escalate the entire proceeding unto another level. Nonetheless, if we overly focus on the interplay of elements, then we risk missing out on the point of the dialogue and mistake the medium for the message. Rivera's unmistakable talent as a songwriter is the real story, as he deftly transforms this dynamic quintet into a unified instrument and unleashes a powerful combination of swinging blasts juxtaposed with forays into the emotional parlance of subtle conversation. From the opening salvo to the last hurrah, the melodic message of "Mestizo" moves effortlessly straightforward and affirms that Rivera is a shining star of unlimited brilliance to keep an eye on for many years to come.
Mestizo, his fifth album as a leader, may well be rising saxophonist/composer/arranger/educator Diego Rivera’s crowning achievement to date. The Michigan-born and raised and now Associate Director of Jazz Studies at Michigan State University delivers his third album as a leader for Posi-Tone and has found a home there both for his solo projects and as a valued sideman. He is the lone horn on Posi-Tone’s Mingus tribute, Blue Moods, issued in January with this same core rhythm trio of pianist Art Hirahara, bassist Boris Kozlov (who released his own album last month covered here) and drummer Rudy Royston. Joining Rivera on the front line for this quintet is the fiery trumpeter and label mate Alex Sipiagin. Eight of the ten compositions are originals with a cover each of Wayne Shorter and Kenny Dorham.
The opener, “Battle Fatigue” was composed in April of 2021, mere moments after Derek Chauvin’s conviction for the murder of George Floyd. Rivera immediately launches into a feverish flight behind the vamping of this potent rhythm trio followed by a more deliberate turn from Sipiagin that also builds in intensity. The tune is a declamatory statement against racism and prejudice. Rivera’s roots as a Chicano imbue several tracks, the first being “Rasquache,” named after the term Rasquachismo, which describes Chicano originality, creativity, and resourcefulness. In short, it is a celebration of the Chicano survivalist attitude, played beautifully by Sipiagin who colors his lines with Mariachi tinges, and Royston who lays down masterful Latin percussion. Later, “Most From The Least” extends this concept with Royston, Hirahara, Rivera, and Sipiagin each firing off blazing riffs around the modified 12-bar blues.
The tempo slows for Shorter’s emotive ballad, “Teru,” which first appeared on Shorter’s 1966 Adam’s Apple. This is one of the more simply structured Shorter tunes, folk-like in its melody, and rendered so sweetly by this unit, as Hirahara, and Rivera takes gorgeous turns as Sipiagin sits this one out. The quintet takes Kenny Dorham’s “Escapade” in a 12/8 Afro-Cuban arrangement reflecting the bent that Dorham and his main collaborator, Joe Henderson, had for Latin music. So, Rivera and Sipiagin with their own bold solos. relive the Henderson-Dorham front line tandem through Rivera’s arrangement of the piece.
“Brachero” serves as a history lesson on sorts. The term means “manual laborer’ and references The Bracero Program of 1942 which addressed a labor shortage in the U.S., thus the agreement to import Mexican labor during WW2. The composition tells the story of the bracero’s journey, first through a thematic melody, the optimistic section in the bridge dreaming of a better life, and finally the work-like chant as it goes out.
While that tune references history, the inspiration for “Cancio De Cuna” is the current troubling situation of families separated at the border. It reads a bit like a lullaby as Rivera envisions his tenor as singing melancholy lines to her child’s empty crib while Sipiagin’s robust flugelhorn carries the voice of a weeping child singing themself to sleep alone. At the end, the horns lock in unison as they both drift off, hoping to see each other in their dreams. Hirahara is so adept in these ballads with his shimmering fills.
The last three compositions are deeply rooted in Chicano culture as well. “La Raza Cosmica” is inspired by Jose Vasconcelos’ controversial 1925 book, translated as “The Cosmic Race,” wherein blending people from all over the globe would create a fifth race, thereby voiding any importance placed on color. Chicanos eventually reclaimed what was once a derogatory term, mestizo, and now treat it as a celebration of culture. There are lots going on here where the vamp is ambiguous, somewhere between major and minor as the rhythm section lays down a healthy groove which both Rivera and Sipiagin soar above. When stating the final theme, the idea is more solid in form, connoting being wiser and more developed.
“The Rose Window” is a reference to a 1775 sculpture located at the Mission de San Jose Catholic Church in San Antonio, TX. The melody came to Rivera when approaching that historic window for the first time. The yearning in the melody is chilling and proves also to be a great vehicle for Sipiagin’s tender flugelhorn and the leader’s warm tenor. Finally, the title track is Rivera’s defining cultural statement, indicating, as he has throughout, that Mexican American, Indigenous, African, Afro-Latin, and straight-ahead jazz can coexist in one cohesive statement. To reinforce that notion, Royston begins with a drum solo to emphasize the importance of rhythm followed by Kozlov stating an R&B, Motown-like groove, with the unison lines echoing both blues and straight-ahead swing as both horns go unleashed, in the way the album began except that joy replaces anguish.
This highly conceived album is a masterpiece that should catapult Rivera into a whole new level of conversation not only about saxophonists but about the best of our contemporary composers and arrangers.