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New Orleans native, drummer Herlin Riley, who spent 17 years with trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ ensembles, is, simply, something special.
Herlin Riley is a powerfully authoritative and concisely proficient drummer from New Orleans, who earned his chops in both smaller groups and more prominently as the drummer with the Wynton Marsalis lead Jazz At Lincoln Centre Orchestra.
The New Orleans drummer produces jazz with its own distinct character on his new album. Critic Kevin Whitehead says Perpetual Optimism is marked by Riley's upbeat nature and attention to detail.
Following his previous recordings Watch What You’re Doing, Cream of the Crescent, and New Direction, Riley’s Perpetual Optimism is infectious, engaging, and irresistible.
The tunes are lucid, the rhythms catchy, and the bright ideas keep on coming.
“Jazz music and the concept of jazz were never foreign to me because I grew up hearing it,” says the master drummer, who was raised by his grandparents Frank and Alice Lastie in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward.
This is an album on which funk and soul bend toward jazz...It’s also an album of big-brotherly purpose, stocked with sharp players mostly still in their 20s: the trumpeter Bruce Harris, the saxophonist Godwin Louis, the pianist Emmet Cohen and the bassist Russell Hall. (Mr. Martínez and the guitarist Mark Whitfield are guests.)
In the tradition of another great jazz drummer/bandleader, Art Blakey, Herlin Riley takes his Afro-Cuban, jazz, and blues experiences and shakes them into a sound that is both new yet familiar. An entic- ing collection of modern New Orleans music; funky jazz for folks who enjoy their musical gumbo on the hot side.