In The Pocket Tampa

"New Jazz Underground" is a trio composed of three Juilliard School Alumni in Jazz at Lincoln Center's inner circle of young artists who have worked closely with jazz masters ranging from Wynton Marsalis, Victor Lewis and ELEW. The trio featuring Abdias Armenteros saxophone 23, Sebastian Rios bass 26, and TJ Reddick drums 23, met while they were students at the prestigious Juilliard School. However, it wasn't until the Summer of 2020 when they started playing as a group regularly. Forced out of live music venues during the pandemic lockdown the group would meet on a weekly basis in the parks and streets of NYC to perform. Still without a live audience, in January of 2021 the band started their YouTube channel and have since built a worldwide audience of over 2 million viewers and 65k+ subscribers as of April 2023 through their viral video performances. The band's artistic ethos is steeped in veneration of the rich lineage of jazz while demonstrating an acute awareness and presence in contemporary postmodernist sensibilities. Their online output reflects this characteristic balance, performing music created in solemn focus on swing, the blues, and improvisation, yet their approach in the modern art and media landscape comes with a measured irony. Attention-grabbing and at times even provocative titles such as "they can hate but we still swinging," "f***ᵏ/s***ᵗ/c**ᵗ/jazz.," and "Modern Jazz but its good" play into "clickbait" and "cringe" internet tropes. However, in contrast to what the titles may suggest these performances exemplify young artists who have immersed themselves in the jazz tradition yet exude an idiosyncratic collective musical identity rooted in the artist's familial interpersonal relationship that speaks to a democratic modernity of profound symbolic significance. In spring of 2023 they are slated to release their first single title "Hold My Halo / Pseudo Latin Vibe" marking their first official release and glimpse into their original musical conception.