Julius Rodriguez | "Let Sound Tell All"

Julius Rodriguez, multi-talented pianist, drummer, and producer, announces the release of his debut album Let Sound Tell All set for release June 10 via Verve Records. Stunning jazz elders and pop and indie peers alike with his technical wizardry, Yoda-like understanding of complex melody, and George Martin-inspired production feats, Rodriguez commands attention for his reverence for sound - however anyone decides to classify it.

Today, he releases his first single “Gift Of The Moon,” a psychedelic number layered with saxophone and high-level production that nods to Roy Hargrove and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

On his debut album Let Sound Tell All, 23 year old musician Julius Rodriguez stirs a cauldron of gospel, jazz, classical, R&B, hip-hop, experimentation, production and sheer technical wizardry to create a stunning debut that commands attention. As an 11 year old kid, Rodriguez honed his jazz chops at Smalls Jazz Club, wowing audiences with his rendition of his favorite Ellington tune “Take the A Train.” Fast forward to 2018 when he dropped out of Juilliard, shimmying off the rigid curriculum to tour with A$AP Rocky. Now, in 2022, Rodriguez is on the cusp of a stellar release that weaves his life and influences - from Monk, Coltrane, Solange, James Blake, Sampha and more. This music is as much at home in Smalls Jazz Club as it is at Gov Ball.

“Gift Of The Moon” was one of the album’s earliest recorded songs.  Rodriguez calls it “the first song I wrote that wasn’t a traditional jazz song, since there’s no solo section.” He struggled for years trying to figure out what to do with it, until in 2019 he asked trumpeter Giveton Gelin to solo over the existing recording. Rodriguez couldn’t pick any of Gelin’s three takes, “so I used all of them at the same time, and it turned into what it is now,” a trick he picked up from George Martin and his youthful idolization of The Beatles’ studio hacks - as well as from Roy Hargrove’s recordings where the late trumpeter would overdub tracks. The addition of Julius’ synth parts and a wordless vocal from Onyx compadre Nick Hakim created a stunning instrumental miniature.

Let Sound Tell All is a complex combination of live improvisation weaved with high-level production. A song may start out in a well-oiled, Coltrane classic quartet energy and fed through distortion pedals to culminate in an exhilarating trippy meltdown of sheer sonic genius.

Call him Gen-Z jazz, but when you hear Julius Rodriguez play “the music,” as he calls it, it’s a modern Sound, as fluent in history as it is aware of its contemporary context. His music dares to imagine a future of new standards and musical trailblazing.  This vanguard was raised in an atmosphere where pop and hip-hop and dance influenced their approaches to melody and harmony and rhythm, so of course it is part of their improvisational DNA. And that’s what Julius Rodriguez’s Sound tells to whoever will choose to listen.