PRESS

"Rossi is one of those players who has 300 years of classical repertoire in his back pocket as well as the chops to cut any pop gig. Every minute of practice, every hour of concentration, brings us closer to the kind of freedom and mastery to which we all aspire - and which Mick Rossi has achieved" - Keyboard Magazine

"Pianist Mick Rossi is an exemplar of the cross-fertilization between jazz and classical music worlds...the smile-creating mix of humor, surprise, gorgeous sounds and virtuosity...relentlessly pressing, twisting and turning...an assuredness and logic that feel inevitable, despite the almost constant surprises." - All About Jazz 

"Now I have a really great piano player for the first time in a long time." - Paul Simon / Huffington Post

"Rossi's piano is the most rooted, solid and resistant spine. Not only for the peculiarities of his instrument, for the implicit polyphonic and therefore harmonious possibilities, but most of all for the authority and serenity that rule his approach. For his courageous minimalism, for his desire to derive unthinkable sounds from his bulky instrument. For his coherent improvisational linearity..." - All About Jazz Italy 

"One Block From Planet Earth [is] multi-faceted, humorous, life relishing, [and] unpretentiously profound." - All About Jazz 

"160 is a masterpiece difficult to label." - All About Jazz Italy 

"160 is a pioneering adventure into electroacoustic futurism." - Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review

"Mick Rossi cements himself in this enterprise: pianist, percussionist, composer -- one of the most lucid, original and creative minds of the New York scene, and long-time collaborator with Philip Glass...it is not to be missed!" - All About Jazz Italy 

"A prodigiously gifted musician and composer...armed with formidable technique, wide-open ears and an improvisor's instincts, he now has a roll-call of regular collaborators that has him leapfrogging from jazz and pop projects to contemporary classical music and film scores." - The Age Of Australia

"Listen to the formidably propulsive and percussive piano technique evinced all through this disc to understand how wild it really is. Songs From The Broken Land is as cool an improvised postmodern piano disc as you’re likely to hear...4 out of 4 stars." - Buffalo News 

"One Block From Planet Earth is rife with imagery ... Rossi can go from orchestra pit animation ... to brooding romanticism, his style capable of both light, almost transparent, musings to hearty, chromatic exposition ála là Keith Jarrett." - Down Beat 

"...Rossi is the commanding force...the lines between pre-composed and instantly composed are blurred...a showcase for both the playing and compositional skills of Rossi." - One Final Note 

“Energetic and Bartokian...Shostakovichian paranoia. [String Qt. No. 2]" - NY Times

"Pianist and drummer Mick Rossi’s years with Philip Glass infuse his very eclectic approach to his work. Unexpected angles and directions abound in Rossi's music.” - One Man's Jazz-AAJ

"A full-bodied avant story-telling character and personality that successfully encompasses various vistas at once. It resembles a well designed and written graphic novel. Even better, there isn't any of the brooding moods or insincerity laden jaded-isms so common among so-called creative musicians." - All About Jazz - New York

“One Block From Planet Earth is another strong statement by a criminally under-recognized pianist and composer." - All Music Guide 

“Rossi’s meticulous piano playing that’s nothing short of stunning [on You Break You Buy]." - Take Effect 

"Rossi is one of the most lucid, original and creative minds of the New York scene, and long-time collaborator with Philip Glass. The full crossing of intelligent digressions that make us slip and fall at times sweetly, at times swiftly, towards a parallel world that is, as is already stated by the title, isolated by distance from our old and rugged terrain." - All About Jazz - Italy

"Rossi is a unique and impressive soloist. Blistering, crashing and pensive" - Harvey Pekar / Jazz Times

"With about zero respect for genre boundaries or conventional pacing, Rossi throws it all into his music and follows his own dramatic sense of structure." - Jazz Times 

"Anti-Matter Live At Barbes is the best jazz on bandcamp 2019." - Bandcamp

"Rossi’s Anti-Matter Live At Barbes cuts loose and takes a hard left turn, producing some of the most exceedingly grooving and expertly executed roof-raising music north of New Orleans." - In On The Corner

"New Math is challenging but stunning terrain, spare but beautiful, affecting to the emotions.Their duets are musical poetry slams, a blueprint for performance jazz, with three-digit numbers identifying the songs on this envelope-shredding disc." - All About Jazz

"They Have A Word For Everything is so encapsulating in a few minutes the whole history of piano in the last 150 years (from Satie to Jarrett). Another great album from the thriving NY downtown scene." - Musicboom 

"Both of these musicians are masters of improv and ideas, constantly coming up with some fascinating explorations on New Math...dig this excellent duo excursion." - Downtown Music Gallery

"Besides his technical abilities, Rossi displays a worldly approach through these glistening mood evoking pieces which run the gamut from being sublime and pensive to brash, well-orchestrated charts brimming with sharp interplay and meaningful soloing. In a nutshell, They Have A Word For Everything is a superb effort and perhaps a late entry into multiple top 10 lists for 1999. Highly Recommended!" - All About Jazz 

"Rossi's musical mind is fun to be around and he is serious without taking himself too seriously. Perverse, gnarly and self-challenging." - Budd Kopman / All About Jazz 

"Pianist Rossi writes and plays with an original voice. The twelve featured compositions sound like something Bach might have scripted if he had been a musician of our times. There are moments of strict counterpoint and others totally free of form. At times the music sounds like a film score from some ghostly civilization that could have possibly existed around the turn of the 19th century. Trumpeter Dave Douglas turns in another one of his stellar performances. Magnificent!" - The Jazz Report

"One Block From Planet Earth is a CD that flawlessly shifts gears between multiple dimensions. Rossi's writing is plainly twisted, but in all the right ways." - Randy Raine-Reusch / Musicworks 

"Rossi's solos are filled with harmonic tension, implying modulations that never occur, and also floating over the bar line in a delicious way. [His] tunes are very infectious, leaving plenty of room for interpretation, and with a consistency that lingers in the mind. No problem recommending this one." - Cadence 

"This is music without any hyphens. Great writing by Rossi, serious playing by all." - Down Beat

"In his improvisations, he's a lot like Don Pullen, pounding out complex left-hand figures while playing with fire in the upper-register. [Also]...recalls some of the more folkish moments of Keith Jarrett's "European" quartet." - Cadence

"Effective, convincing, [an] individual voice." - Jazz Times

"Rossi as a pianist is gifted and subtle, ...with exceptional finesse, ...a treat for the avant-garde/free-form fanatic." - JazzReview

"Rossi can play with [Paul] Bley-like lucidity, and he has an excellent rhythm section in Driscoll and Descarfino. The group creates vital music from increasingly tense interactivity." - Cadence

"...a pleasant surprise. A sense of fun. A group of musicians well-schooled in the genres and rules they choose to depart from. I hope more of this stuff is happening in New York." - All Music Guide 

"Though it is really difficult to do something new in this format, these three musicians having succeeded in doing so." - Jazz Live

"It doesn't take long for the listener to dig Trenton-born Rossi as a rollicking cat worth listening to." - Philadelphia Inquirer 

"Rossi's music can be compared to Samuel Barber's in its spacious, tense lyricism. Evocatively melds chamber music and jazz motifs; it pulsates, undulates, romanticizes and bangs along." - Philadelphia Inquirer

"Inside The Sphere is Powerful" - Jazz Live

"Nosferatu stands on its own as a significant artistic work...an emotionally charged, cross-genre event." - All About Jazz 

"Inspired compositions, perceptively played by wonderful soloists." - Jazz Podium

"Rossi's music inspires adjectives like 'dark,' 'moody,' 'imaginative' and 'affecting', [and] has a real power over the listener. It is full of paradoxes: dark yet pleasant, pensive yet not brooding. Mick Rossi's fine penmanship utilizes each instrument to superior advantage." - Jazziz

"...[He] displays theatrical flair, his allusive, boldly articulated, shapeshifting music is inherently dramatic. His breadth of playing experience is matched by his stylistic resourcefulness as a writer..." - The Wire

"Sublime." - Jazzman

"Rossi is the star of the date." - Jazz Review