RUST: A Homage to the Crescent City by Pianist/Composer Amaury Faye and his NOLA Quartet

 

Amaury Faye and his NOLA Quartet-RUST

The French pianist Amaury Faye is new to me. His latest music, the album released November 15, 2025 RUST, is a robust revelation. I have to thank the persistence and good taste of his publicist Matt Merewitz, for turning me onto this one. When I saw drum master Herlin Riley on the credits, that was one more positive indication to me that Faye's music might offer some welcome surprises and I was not disappointed. 

This thirty-five year old pianist comes out of Paris. Faye has a long list of achievements in the European musical world. He has been a member of the Vogue Trio where he lent his pianistic skills to the group led by Belgian double bassist Giuseppe Millaci from 2016 through 2023. The group is known for modern jazz that incorporates a European elegance and rhythmic variation. Faye has also played with the well-respected twelve-member French collective Iniative H led by saxophonist David Haudrechy.

Faye's history as a potent sideman has not stopped the pianist from finding his own voice as a pianist/leader. In  2010, he released My Big Toe with Louis Navarro on bass and Pierre Ardré,  which was a live recording based on music inspired by pianists Kenny Barron, Oscar Peterson and Hank Jones. In 2016, Faye came to the US to study at Berklee, in Boston, with Joanne Brackeen, and in March 2015, he was awarded Berklee's Jazz Performance Award for best jazz pianist of that year. In 2019, Faye released his first solo album Buran, a grand and introspective eight-piece suite that was inspired by his parent's work in the space industry. Bursan means snowstorm in Russian. It is inspired by Faye's respect for Russian music, culture and the beauty of Siberia's vast expanse and incorporates elements that combine classical, cinema, pop and jazz music.

(left to right clock wise) Amaury Faye, Herlin Riley, Julian Lee and Amina Scott  

With so many diverse influences, Amaury is never one whose musical offerings can be pigeonholed into a particular genre. On his latest release RUST,  Faye is joined by a dynamic group of musicians who add to the possibilities in the pianist's color palette. Besides Faye's facile piano work , he creates catchy, cinematic compositions which lend to creative, lively improvisation by his bandmates. Bassist Amina Scott offers plucky, booming lines that swell the beat organically and with vitality. Tenor saxophonist Julian Lee plays with a searing confidence. A fiery player whose  sax elevates this music. Trap master Herlin Riley adds  that secret sauce factor to the album. The soul and Afro-Caribbean rhythm variations that breathe New Orleans life into this offering.

The opener, "Sirens of the Crescent City," finds Lee's saxophone recreating the urgency of a siren-like plea over Faye's ostinato piano lines. Besides the images created by the music, there is a jagged line here that is punctuated by Scott's booming bass and Riley's simmering drum and cymbal work. Lee's saxophone builds the urgency like an overflowing pot of boiling water. The music aurally captures the frenetic energy of an unexpected emergency mode that a visitor to any big city might experience.

"Walkin' Down the Levee" captures a funky, sauntering musical strut down to New Orleans famous Levee. The Levee, over one hundred feet long and at times finding embankments of over sixteen feet in height, offer New Orleans a lifeline. It allows this unique city to exist below sea level. But the Levee is also a liability. The dual personality of the structure showed its dangerous side when in 2005 Hurricane Katrina ran havoc, overflowing the levees and yielding massive destruction. That being said, Faye's take on walking down at the Levee is more of a soulful, funky ode to the vitality and spirit that he has experienced there. Faye sets the tone with a slinky, captivating shuffle that opens with a syncopated drum entre by Riley and  features Lee's husky tenor stating the repeating lines of the melody, supported by Scott's pulsing bass and Faye's supportive descending piano lines. Lee's tenor work builds tension and excitement with an aplomb that  remind me a bit of Michael Brecker. Faye's piano solo is inventive with a graceful elegance that carries you along. You find yourself rocking your head back and forth to the infectious beat he, along with Scott and Riley, create. If you're like me, this one is on your repeat play list for a while.

"The Railyard," part of Faye's cinematic-like portrait of New Orleans, finds the pianist using the propulsive rhythm of the team of Scott and Riley to create an aural image of constant motion. The team play brilliantly, all four locked into a repeating syncopated synchrony. The music offers solos- first by Faye whose playing hovers in a soup of sounds that have elements of pop, classical and jazz, similarly to the way Brad Mehldau amalgamates and blurs these styles. Lee's tenor follows with his own clarion bursts and the song ends with Riley's roiling drum work finishing with authority to the coda.

"Huckabuck Garden" opens with Faye, Scott and Riley having a rollicking conversation. This has a low down, Honky-tonk, NOLA feel to it. The title refers to a sweet, fruit or sugar flavored homemade frozen desert -a huckabuck-popular in New Orleans and parts of the Louisiana and Georgia. 

The album continues with a ragtime inspired tune "Public Belt Rag." As the pianist Jelly Roll Morton was one of the first to incorporate ragtime time with improvisation, this one could easily be a homage to this inventive style. Faye once again proves just how diverse his musical education and abilities are. Pure fun.

The boogie-woogie blues is on display on "The Barges Blues." Faye's piano work  follows in the steps of early innovators of this style like James Booker, Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons. Faye's pianistic style here, like mush of what he does, always has a certain elegance to it. The quartet all have fun with this one and it has a spirit that puts a smile on your face.

The title cut "Rust" opens with an repeating rhythmic phrase that creates a signature, a theme to the song. Faye's piano lines set the scene, Scott and Riley add the rhythmic counterpoint and Lee's saxophone play a serpentine line over the riff. Rust is a pervading, often a never-ceasing deterioration that is usually associated with aging metal. For old cities like New Orleans, infrastructure like bridges and railroad tracks have their share of rusting. As the cover photo of the album reveals, Faye seems to have witnessed this ongoing fight to keep valuable structures from rusting away and ultimately failing. As an artist, Faye's music is raising awareness of these issues, as well as celebrating the area's celebratory musical feel and I applaud that effort. 

"The Old Empress in the Gloaming" is a very telling title to this haunting ballad. Faye has a poetic flair here. While its hard to know his intention, the title refers to the fading grandeur of an old royal lady. "In the gloaming" refers to in the twilight or in the dusk. The music evokes mystery, a little melancholy and reflection. The music seems to have been based on Faye's experience in New Orleans. One might project that this song is the pianist finding the Crescent City, presumably the old empress, to have been through a lot (like Katrina), with its rusting infrastructure, and its once grandeur is rapidly in decline. Listen for yourself and see if that reading feels true to you.

The closing composition, "Sweet, Chaotic And Vibrant"  is a moving, classically  inspired solo piano ode, probably  to the Crescent City. Faye ends with this emotive piece and he impresses with his astute observations of what his experience has meant to him. If ever an artist revealed his love of a place, with all its warts, Amaury Faye's RUST  is a fitting and deep felt homage to New Orleans.

  

Friends of Santa Fe Jazz presents Giacomo Gates at La Posada

Giacomo Gates live at La Posada June 20, 2010

 Friends of Santa Fe Jazz is an organization, since its inception in 2006, dedicated to preserving and supporting live jazz in Santa Fe, New Mexico.. Billed as "a group of jazz soul mates" and co-chaired by one time President of the prestigious Berklee School of Music, Lee Berk and his wife Susan, the non-profit group organizes and presents top- notch jazz entertainment in intimate venues around the Santa Fe area.

By sheer coincidence, or shall I say synchronicity, I was at the Jazz Journalist Association yearly awards last week in New York City and had the privilege of sitting with several musicians and singers who were up for award consideration. One of these happened to be the fine singer Giacomo Gates who had been nominated as "Best Male Vocalist of the Year" by my fellow members of the JJA. While we were enjoying the proceedings, which included many fine performances by some notables like the Marc Cary Focus Trio, The Tia Fuller  Quartet and the Bobby Sanabria Big Band, I asked Giacomo where he would be gigging next. Much to my surprise he told me that he would be playing  in Santa Fe, New Mexico next week for the Friends of Santa Fe Jazz.  As life would have it, I too would be in Santa Fe that weekend and so I told him I would make the effort to get to see him perform there.

On a perfectly sunny Santa Fe afternoon, Giacomo Gates was performing in a splendidly outfitted open-aired banquet hall of the La Posada Inn and Spa. The room seated approximately one hundred and twenty patrons at twelve tables. The mostly middle-aged crowd came for an afternoon of jazz and brunch, with the music being provided  by the beguiling Mr. Gates backed by a local group, the John Trentacosta Trio, which included the drummer John Trentacosta, the bassist Michael Olivola and the keyboard artist Brian Bennett.

Mr. Gates is a tall, gangly man with large, strangely comforting features that give you a glimpse into a life that wasn't always spent singing in front of  sophisticated admirers in posh settings. By his own admission, he has spent years running bulldozers and doing other construction related  jobs-at one time running off to find adventure in the wilds of Alaska during the construction of the pipeline in the mid-seventies. With a traditional upbringing that stressed a love of music as an avocation but never as a profession, it is to his credit that he was able to eventually follow his heart and let his unique vocal talents flourish to the benefit of all.

With a warm, distinctive baritone voice that has the deep coffee tones of a dark roast, he is as disarming a troubadour as they come.  His set featured many songs from his latest release Luminosity. His delivery is smooth, confident and conversational with no traces of  arrogance. He is an endearing storyteller, as was on display by his tongue-in-cheek take on the old standard "Pennies from Heaven". Mr. Gates cleverly portrays a cuckolded soldier who returns from a three year stint in the service only to find his wife presenting him with a newborn son. Her explanation "Bennie's from Heaven".  His silky baritone is particularly adept at ballads like his slow, sensual take on "You Go To My Head"  or his hip rendering of the Gershwin classic "Summertime".

Like one of his influences, the late Eddie Jefferson, he is a master of the art of vocalese and scatting , studying instrumentalist solos from the likes of Chet Baker (on "But Not For Me" )  and Charlie Parker (on "Lady Be Good" ), precisely duplicating them with his voice in all their labyrinthine complexities.  Several times during the set he vocally mimicked instrument sounds. He voiced solos on bass, trombone and flute much to the surprise of the audience as well as the amusement of his band members- the highlight being his trombone solo on Cole Porter's "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To".  He was equally adept at taking the bossa sound of Horace Silver's "Song for My Father" , a especially relevant song on this Father's Day, and inserting percussive accents making it his own.

Mr. Gates was ably accompanied by the fine work
of the bassist Michael Olivola who was particularly  sympathetic on the duet  " But Not For Me".
Mr. Trentacosta  unfailingly kept the pulse of the session while Mr. Bennett's electric keyboard solos filled the spaces with thoughtful comps and probing solos. The band instantaneously responded  to
Mr. Gates who directed the starts and stops of
the program with the ease of an accomplished conductor. 

Mr. Gates is a true treasure that should not be missed in "live" performance, where his warm personality adds another endearing element to his considerable vocal talents. His performance at La Posada was a tour de force and was undoubtedly the jewel of the season for the Friends of Santa Fe Jazz 2010 concert series.