Press

Gerlesborg
April 8th, 2000
by Eva Ahlstrand Berkland.

The Kamikaze Ground Crew is a musicians collective where all the musicians have strong and carrying roles, and it wouldn't feel right to give prominence to one before the others. But I dare say that no one in the audience will forget Marcus Rojas, who handles his tuba like it was a harmonica. What lungs that man must have! Seemingly inexhaustible, he plays imaginative solos mixed with heavy and safe bass lines. It's not surprising to read that he is ranked as one of the most prominent tuba players in the world.

Pop Matters Music review

— 6 April 2005

The music on Mountain Passages was composed for the 2003 Sound of the Dolomites music festival in Italy. The band had to hike up to 12,000 feet and play in the open air, so Douglas composed music for trumpet, reeds, cello, percussion, and tuba, incorporating local Landino music that, Douglas states in the liner notes, "seemed to veer between solemn devotional calmness and riotous drunken celebration."

Now, I have no idea what Ladino music sounds like, but what Douglas has created here is a completely fresh jazz sound. Douglas gives his tuba player, the down-home but virtuosic Marcus Rojas, the job of grounding this band, while the front line of trumpet, Michael Moore's clarinet or alto sax, and Peggy Lee's cello dance, dart, and mourn in passages that are alternately parallel and counterpoint. Dylan van der Schyff uses his drum kit to color the music as much as to drive it forward, and so the result is a wide open sound -- a splash of folksy world music covering a jazz sound that is equal parts New Orleans, cool, and avant-garde. Mountain Passages seems like the right title for this music. You can feel the air flowing through it -- you can taste the clouds creeping down into the harmonies.

Plunge
Falling with Grace
Accurate

I've always loved the blatt! of low-end horns, and this trombone- and tuba-driven avant-jazz quartet can wail. From funk to New Orleans jazz to pensive ballads, Plunge Mark McGrain, Marcus Rojas, drummer/percussionist Bob Moses, and double-bassist Avishai Cohen delivers a sonic feast with all the fixings. Fast tunes are eminently danceable, tracks so hot their grooves stick in your head hours later; slower tunes are similarly tasty, just a little more ruminative. Check out Plunge's honkin' horn harmonies and slappin' 'n' poppin' tuba!

Peter L. Herb

Spanish Fly

By Norman Weinstein

Fly by Night

Accurate

Tubist Marcus Rojas has long played in jazz ensembles known for expanding traditional musical boundaries. Spanish Fly, a band mingling New Orleans and Manhattan styles, finds Rojas paired with slide guitarist Dave Tronzo and trumpeter Steven Bernstein, plus guest drummer Ben Perowsky. This album is an immeasurable leap from the first, presenting an eight-part suite composed for the San Francisco Ballet. Full of vocalized growls, slurs, and shouts, the group's sound has a rumbling and roaring vitality that only jazz well-seasoned with funky blues tidbits and streetwise humor can offer.