Handmade : Emilio Solla's Tribute to Craft and it's Importance to Human Connection

 

Emilio Solla and La Inestable De Brooklyn-Handmade-Club Disco Records

The Grammy award winning, Argentina-born pianist/composer Emilio Solla and his group La Inestable De Brooklyn, releases his latest Handmade of March 13, 2026. Solla is this era’s eminent practitioner of creating modern music. He skillfully combines elements of Tango, Milonga, Latin Folk and Jazz sensibilities into its own beguiling style and Handmade delivers that in spades.

For those not up to speed on Solla’s previous work, Solla was educated in Argentina receiving his degree in Classical Piano at the National Conservatory of Music in Buenos Aires. He later received a master’s in jazz composition from the Aaron Copland School of Music in New York, eventually relocating first to Barcelona in Spain in 1996 and later to New York in 2006 where he now resides. He has worked with notable jazz musicians like Billy Hart, Paquito Rivera and Donny McCaslin and leads his own NY-based quintet Bien Sur!. Solla has been an active composer in chamber and symphonic music with such notable projects as Suite Piazzollana, a modern Tango/jazz inspired suite that is a homage to the guitar icon Astor Piazzolla. He released his 17-piece big band recording Puertos: Music from International Waters in 2019 and the album won a Latin Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album in 2020. In 2023 he received praise for his arrangements and orchestrations for his collaboration with Paquito D’Rivera titled Ritmo-The Chick Corea Symphony Tribute.  

Emilio Solla (photo credit unknown)

Handmade is a beautiful addition to this talented composer’s discography. The album is a tribute to craft, the art of working with your mind and hands. Given the rapid changes in the technologies that seem to alter almost every way we work and communicate, it is fitting that an artist like Solla recognizes that our work or our art,  a product of our creativity and hard achieved skill, is honestly realized by our own hands, our own voices, our own instruments and even in the case of dance, our feet. As such it needs to be honored and preserved to maintain the essential human connection we need to effectively communicate ideas. I believe Solla’s message here is that when technologies like robotic machines or AI can mimic our creativity and communicate soulless information or algorithmic generated art then we have lost something that we cannot afford to lose.

Solla’s La Inestable De Brooklyn, which loosely translates fittingly as The Unpredictable from Brooklyn, is made up of some top-tier musicians from NY.  The nonet includes Solla on piano; Tim Aracost on tenor saxophone , clarinet and bass clarinet; Sara Caswell is on violin; Edward Perez mans the double bass; Rogério Boccato provides drum work and percussion; Mike Fahie is on trombone; Rodolfo Zaneti is on bandoneon; David Smith plays trumpet and flugelhorn; Alejandro Avilés can be heard on soprano and alto saxophone, and flute; Facundo Colman provides percussion on track 2; and the vocal of Sofia Tosello on track 9.

Emilio Solla and La Inestable De Brooklyn

Solla opens the album with the third part of his “Suite de los Abrazo”- Bodegon Canibal or “Suite of Hugs or Embraces.”  He comments on his album notes that the three-piece suite should not be thought of as being required to be heard in a particular sequence and so he suggests that listeners might mix and match the suites. On the third suite, a gorgeous piece that demonstrates Solla’s creative use of the band’s diverse tonal basket, we hear Boccato’s drum and percussive work set the infective beat.  Armacost’s bass clarinet provides an unusual woody, tonal bass line before the remaining section adds the brass and woodwind color.  Solla’s piano adds sparse accents and Perez ‘s bass beautifully maintains the rhythm with Boccato. Avilés alto soars and then the total section creates a cacophonic but joyful canvas of color that includes inspired work by Armacost, Aviles, Smith, and Fahie. Caswell and Zanetti weave their two instruments in a particularly sympathetic way adding their tones as Solla’s arrangement swells with excitement and splendor. Wonderful.

The album continues with a homage to the compositions of Joni Mitchell. Solla starts out with a repeating piano line that is accented by Zanetti’s warm bandoneon and sweet Caswell’s violin. Solla skillfully orchestrates the instruments that he has available to him like an artist painting a picture and the results are gorgeous, but despite his reference to having referenced some of Mitchell’s compositions in this piece, I cannot tell which ones he used for the inspiration. Needless to say the man has a wellspring of imagination.

The second part of the suite” Suite do los Abrazo” is subtitled “Milonga MUtante” and is a piece that was inspired during the Covid pandemic.  Like most of Solla’s work, this piece tells a story, this one musically recreating the feel of being in an Emergency Room in the early days of the pandemic. Boccato’s drum work is evocative of the coming urgency. Solla uses the tango briefly before the group creates the hectic, frazzled and unsettling experience of being in that scary scene. Mike Fahie’s trombone provides an expressive solo, a voice that seems to be expressing his bewilder, lonely feel. The rest of the group adds to the cacophonic, unfettered frenzy of being there.

“Para el Agua” or “For the Water” was originally written as a solo piano piece by Solla. Here he arranges the music for the larger chamber group. Sara Caswell’ s violin lays out the opening lines over Boccato’s trap cadenced work and Solla’s ostinato piano work. Smith’s trumpet and Armacost’s bass clarinet and Zanetti’s bandoneon all add to the mix before Solla takes his most melodically gorgeous and harmonically inventive piano solo of the album. The arrangement bustles with tonal ideas that make this one stand out.

The final piece of the suite is subtitled “The Loss” and according to the liner notes was inspired by poetry. Solla’s piano spells out t moving ballad beautifully.  The group sets up the tension, the section swelling to evoke the coming loss. Edward Perez’s double bass offers a most facile and imaginative pizzicato solo that conjures up personal loss here. Perez is accompanied by intuitive violin work by Caswell and some emotive bandoneon work by Zanetti that sets the sorrowful mood perfectly

Solla is a master of the new tango and here he seems to be evoking the progressiveness of Miles Davis approach to music by naming this “Miles Tango.” This is not your father’s tango. Solla take the dance form and enlivens it with some of his most searching piano work on the album. The brass section wails- the rhythm section adds some funk bass and drum lines- Smith’s muted trumpet soars through the ozone. Solla creates some complex lines for the group to navigate as a unit and they do so precisely until the abrupt stop at the coda.

“Bird Song” is one of the most sonically inventive of the Solla’s songs, in no small part due to Sara Caswell’s violin eerily creating bird sounds that work so well with this composition. The music was commissioned by a chamber music ensemble from San Antonio, Texas. Solla envisioned a bird that flew easily between Mexico and Texas at the border, unencumbered by customs or immigration rules. Not only was the bird free, but this avian creature could also dance to Solla’s wonderful folk-inspired music. The group was a cornucopia of sounds weaving a magical environment- flutes, trumpets, woodwinds, piano, bandoneon- that created a splendid background for Caswell’s precocious bird. This cinematic piece is aural delight.

“La Carta” (The Letter) opens with a moving interaction between Caswell’s violin and Solla’s repeating piano lines. In the notes, Solla acknowledges that having been involved in the Ritmo project, where he orchestrated some of the great Chick Corea’s music, indelibly had an impact on his own playing. Solla confess that the piano ostinato on this one could easily have been inspired by Corea’s own “Children’s Song.” No matter what influences, here Solla’s music is a heartfelt, wordless letter that blossoms like a flower burgeoning to the warm light of the sun. The orchestration is gorgeous, as Solla blends the sounds of violin, clarinet, bass clarinet, bowed bass, and subtle percussive accents to his ringing, monotone piano lines.  After hearing this once, it’s almost impossible for the listener not to play it back multiple times to absorb the artistry of this gem of music making.

The final cut on the album is the only composition that uses voice as one of its elements. “De Viento y de Sal” or Of Wind and of Salt is perhaps the most traditional chamber music piece on the album and it features the gorgeously expressive voice of the Argentinian singer Sofia Tasello. The music is implemented by the sounds of Caswell violin and Zanetti’s wonderful Bandoneon. Tasello and the band deliver a fitting coda to this beautiful album.

Emilio Solla’s Handmade is truly an important album that revels in story-telling, marvels in astute arrangements, and embraces the listener in emotive feelings. It utilizes a band of talented and sympathetic musicians that bring the composer’s vision to life. As the composer says, the music is like a suite of a big hug or embrace!"   

Exploring Lost Art Treasures : Jason Palmer's "The Concert: 12 Musings for Isabella'

Jason Palmer The Concert: 12 Musings for Isabella GSA 004

Art often discovers inspiration in unexpected places. For trumpet talent Jason Palmer, inspiration came from a visit to the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston, while attending classes at New England Conservatory of Music,  and seeing the empty stark frames on the walls, an eerie reminder that art was not immune to violation.

On March 18, 1990, the Isabell Stewart Gardner Museum was the scene of a massive theft- the purported single largest property theft in the world. Thieves posing as police officers, duped the on-duty security officers to let them into the closed museum, tied them up and in eight-one minutes proceeded to remove thirteen priceless works of art. They made off that night, over thirty years ago, to never be seen again.  It is an amazing caper for its gall and confounding success. Fortunately, there were no casualties, but like the famous parachutist thief D.B. Cooper, who vanished never to be found, these careful burglars were amazingly never captured or even identified. These gorgeous and priceless pieces of art, reportedly worth $500 million dollars, were never recovered and so, for now, the robbery leaves humanity forever the poorer. 

For Jason Palmer, the artwork represented a series of beautiful stories in and of themselves. Although lost, they needed to be properly celebrated and memorialized. As an artist whose brush and easel was a chart of music and the voices of expressive instruments, Palmer went about to compose musical pieces that represent his concept of these lost works of art.

The album is titled The Concert: 12 Musings for Isabella and was produced by Jimmy and Dena Katz at Giant Steps Arts and features the potent and talented group of Mark Turner on tenor saxophone, Joel Ross on vibraphone, Edward Perez on bass, Kendrick Scott on drums and Palmer on trumpet and composer. The performance was recorded live in May of 2019 in the Harold S. Vanderbilt Penthouse at the InterContinental New York Barclay. 

The two-disc recording includes twelve compositions named after the stolen artwork or in two cases art artifacts “ A Lady and Gentleman in Black"

(Rembrandt), ‘Cortege aux Environs do Florence’ (Degas), ‘La Sortie de Pesage” (Degas), “Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee” (Rembrandt), “A French Imperial Eagle Finial” (uncredited artifact), “Chez Tortoni” (Manet), “Program for an Artistic Soiree” ( Degas), “An Ancient Chinese Gu” (uncredited artifact), “The Concert” (Vermeer), “Landscape with an Obelisk” (Flinck), “Self Portrait”

(Rembrandt) and “Three Mounted Jockeys” (Degas).

Palmer has taught in many universities and is an assistant professor at Berklee School of Music. He often plays with his own quintet at Boston’s historic Wally’s Café  and has appeared with many jazz prominent artists including Herbie Hancock, Roy Haynes, Phil Woods, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to name just a few.

Palmer and his astute bandmates have captured the aural aspects that the visual images that these exceptional artworks evoke. The staccato, darting pace of the music introduces you to Rembrandt’s rather decorous looking “A Lady and a Gentleman in Black.”  It features the tight, front-line synchronous work of Palmer and Turner. Palmer’s trumpet is precise and penetrative in his note selection. Turner offers a more resonant attack that darts in and out of the pulse. Ross’ sinewy vibes work nicely and complimentary to Scott’s rapid fired drum lines and Perez’s grounded bass. If the music is any indication, these two prim and proper figures of Rembrandt’s focus may have led a more robust life than their appearance seems to reveal.

Rembrandt's A Lady and a Gentleman in Black

Palmer’s clarion sounding trumpet leads off on Degas “Cortege aux Environs do Florence,” which is a pencil and sepia wash on paper, and one of the more understated of the works that were stolen. The mood established by Palmer and his group is atmospheric, carefree, and almost fanciful. Palmer, Turner and Ross each take turn soloing. The musicians are true to a feeling evoked by Degas’ figures, strolling on foot and leisurely being accompanied by horses on a procession through the pastoral scene outside of Florence. It is easy to imagine Degas’ revelers might enjoy this music if played for their enjoyment by a group of troubadours.

Degas’ “La Sortie de Pesage” is an expressive, muted watercolor that depicts a more urban setting that centers on the parading of jockey mounted racehorses as they saunter through the back streets of a city on race day.  The music has a rhythmic canter feel that in some ways mimics what the horses, in being walked through the streets of an 1850’s era European metropolis, might sound like. The music is carried rhythmically by the deft rhythmic whooshing created by Scott’s percussive mastery.  

Degas: La Sortie de Pesage

Perhaps one of the most valued artworks lost in the robbery was Rembrandt’s tumultuous “Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee.” The scene depicts a ship with Christ and his followers overwhelmed by a squall in turbulent seas. Rembrandt has often painted his own image, with purportedly as many as ninety self-portraits known to have existed.  Here he places himself in this biblical scene as one of the terrified fishermen. His face is seen holding his hat in one hand and grasping the ropes to steady himself with the other. Jesus is sleeping during the storm, and according to the gospel of Mark, he is frantically awoken by panicked followers. The awakened Christ calms the wind and storm with his exclamation “Peace. Be Still.” stopping the storm and fortifying the greatness of his divine authority. 

Musically Palmer opens this composition using Scott’s polyrhythmic drums as a tool that slowly builds the tumult in intensity, like a brewing storm. The front line of Turner and Palmer play lines in tandem, seemingly ascending with force like a cascading flow toward a pluming swell of water. The soloists alternate in quick succession over Scott’s tumultuous drums. This one captures the painting's fury aurally. They build the kinetic electricity of the rising storm until the group resolves the tension to a tranquil calm at the coda. 

Rembrandt The Storm at the Sea of Galilee

Two of the pieces taken from the Gardner heist were not paintings or drawings but artifacts. One was a Bronze Eagle Napoleon Flag Finial and the other a Chinese Shang Dynasty Ku (beaker) from the 1100-1200s.  Palmer creates a bit of a militaristic sound for his “A French Imperial Eagle” and on “An Ancient Chinese Gu,” Palmer's composition finds Ross’ vibes voice a tubular conversation with Scott’s percolating drums.    

“Chez Tortoni,” by Manet, is a portrait of a well-dressed gentleman in a top hat with pen in hand, as he is gazing at the observer with intention. The music starts off with a probing bass solo by Perez that morphs into a percussive rhythmic exchange with Scott before it emerges into the full group playing energetically in unison. Turner creates a warm and pointed sound that just intrigues and Ross adds a full mellow and floating vibe that elevates the music to the ozone. Palmer's trumpet often can erupt with piercing lines but can also caress a tune with lyrical mastery. These are all talented musicians with distinct voices on their instruments.

“Program for an Artistic Soiree” is another Degas’ pencil sketch that features multiple ideas from the artist-smoke stacks, sailing Clippers, musical instruments, and ballet dancer-all miniature studies. With the diversity of the subject matter, Palmer composes what is the most traditional straight-ahead jazz piece of the cd. The music has a pulsing drive led by Perez’s bass and Scott’s drive. Each musician has an opportunity to be featured on a solo with Perez’s facile bass standing out on this one. This is a "live" recording so often you hear how much the audience loves what they are hearing. The music swings and Turner and Palmer work exceptionally well together, meshing counterpoint lines as dual leads that sonically merge beautifully.

Vermeer’s “The Concert” is one of the artworks that a musician can easily relate to. It depicts three musicians in a sitting room. Vermeer features two other artworks placed on the walls of the scene and a landscape painted on the piano’s open lid. As with all of Vermeer’s artwork, the light is hauntingly realistic and illuminating. Palmer and his cohorts use this composition to create a sonic expression of how a small house concert could be played- softly, sensitively, and with a simpatico between the musicians. This composition has its own beauty, freedom, and transcendence.

Vermeer The Concert

The remaining compositions include Govert Flinck’s “Landscape with an Obelisk” with some fascinating cymbal and drum work from Scott. Rembrandt’s “Self Portrait,” a celebration of multiple ideas from these musical minds. Degas’ “Three Mounted Jockeys” ends the set with this jaunty piece played robustly and with feeling by Turner. Palmer’s mastery of the high register is used poignantly here, and the talented Ross’ vibes modulate with a buoyancy that again elevates the music. Scott and Perez keep the music moving seamlessly.

If an artist’s musical creativity can draw you as a listener into the sources of his inspiration, then one can only appreciate the musician for his curiosity, creativity, and dedication. Palmer is an unusual artist whose imaginative music captured me with his The Concert:12 Musings for Isabella. Beyond his facility on the trumpet, Palmer’s compositional skills show a bright future. He has created some thoughtful and expressive pieces of music here and this project had the added reward of piquing my own curiosity to learn more about those lost Gardner masterpieces that inspired this work.