Zach Brock Plays Jazz Standard, Releases Purple Sounds

Brooklyn musician Zach Brock has created a youthful signature approach to playing the violin that has kept him in hot demand by artists as diverse as Snarky Puppy and Stanley Clarke. Recently named the Rising Star Violinist by Downbeat Magazine and featured at the 2013 Jazz Journalists Awards and 2012 Sundance Film Festival, Brock has composed a new jazz language for the violin informed by his elite improvisational ability, his Kentucky roots and by alternative music and rock influences including Jimi Hendrix and Leslie Feist.

Now with his 2nd Criss Cross release Purple Sounds featuring Lage Lund, Matt Penman and Obed Calvaire, Brock pays tribute to master violinists and the classic violin/guitar pairing.  Purple Sounds follows Brock’s first release on the European label Criss Cross Almost Never Was, which was the first recording by a violinist for the venerable label and featured Aaron Goldberg on piano, Matt Penman on bass and Eric Harland on drums.

ZACH BROCK ON NEW SOUND, BROOKLYN AND TWIN BABY GIRLS

Purple Sounds is the first thematic approach I’ve done for a recording. It was inspired by the traditional pairing of violin with guitar throughout jazz history. I wanted to see if I could approach this material in a way that was more personally expressive and not totally beholden to the great recordings of the past.  I’m at the beginning of a new phase in my music where I hear and see a new sound with my violin that is distinctly different from what I have heard in the past. I think my new concept has a lot to do with living in Brooklyn so long and definitely the birth of my twin daughters last fall – the soul-searching that I went through, both personally and musically prior to their births, led me to some new discoveries in all aspects of my life. It also led to the tune BROOKLYN BALLAD on this CD. This new sound, in some ways, is simply a return to my original musical intent to play jazz violin in the way that I do, but with the benefit of almost a decade in New York and everything that has come with that.

SHOW INFO: JUNE 4 — 730PM & 930PM. $20. 116 E. 27th St (Park & Lexington). 212.576.2232.