Jersey City Jams Prove Essential to the Sound of Ben Rosenblum’s Global Jazz

PHOTO: The Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project

Ben Rosenblum was still in high school when he met Israeli-born pianist Roy Assaf who became his mentor. Assaf earned his stripes playing in The Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars, a traveling roadshow of cats who actually played with The Master of Bebop. Assaf turned Rosenblum on to Baltimore drummer Winard Harper who has led his own sextet for a decade. When Winard moved to Jersey City, he invited Rosenblum to participate in a series of weekly jams and that’s where Ben might’ve found his voice.

A Thousand Pebbles (One Trick Dog Records), the second album by the Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project (fourth overall), with composer/producer Ben on piano and accordion, backed by an absolutely stunning lineup of surprising syncopation—with Croatian church bells, trumpet, flugelhorn, alto sax, tenor sax, bass clarinet, flute, alto flute, guitar, bass and drums—travels the world-music spectrum. From Bulgarian vocal polyphony, Brazilian samba, bossa nova and Afro-Caribbean rhythms to prog-rock, Irish shanties, Punjabi folk songs, even folkloric Turkish strains. This is world-fusion at its finest highlighted by a four-part centerpiece suite.