The city of Las Vegas may be known best as a vacation destination, its proximity to the Palm Desert and for its casino gambling, yet there has also been a fine jazz scene growing there as well. Also in Las Vegas is Vegas Records, a cool record company that has released music by a range of jazz artists. A recent release on Vegas Records sure to attract the attention of jazz fans is Heroes, the third solo album by veteran sax maven Rick Keller.

With 14 tracks clocking in around 70 minutes, Heroes pays tribute to some of Rick’s major jazz influences. For example, the lead-off track, a tribute to jazz guitar legend Pat Metheny, is titled simply “For Pat”. Clocking in at just under eight minutes, the track is a perfect showcase for Rick’s sax solos, coupled with some tasty piano work by Dave Siegel and the fleet-fingered guitar work of Camilo Velandia. An excellent Keller original that somehow manages to spin the essence of Metheny’s guitar-centric style, “For Pat” starts off Heroes in style.

More respect is paid via Rick’s compositional style with nods of appreciation to Mike Manieri and Michael Brecker’s Steps Ahead, the band Weather Report, Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, Miles Davis, Tower Of Power and Bill Bruford. The embryonic New Age jazz group Oregon is paid respects on a six-track musical suite called “Cycle Of Life”. Even though the music on Heroes is all original, these tracks somehow evoke and reflect the influences these classic jazz groups have had on Keller.

The cast of musicians on the album reflects the dedicated nature that Keller brings to the overall scope and intention of the Heroes album. With Keller performing all saxes, flutes, keyboards and percussion programming, the band on hand features a wide range of players on trumpet, keyboards, guitars, vibraphones, bass, percussion and drums. The sound is full-bodied, well recorded and superbly fills up the soundstage.

A well-rounded musician, Rick Keller and his magical sax sound has backed up a staggering range of recording and performing artists, from pop legends Frankie Valli and Barry Manilow to solid jazz acts Bill Bruford, Billy Cobham, Joe Sample and more. Currently a professor at the University of Las Vegas, teaching music technology, jazz saxophone and composition, Rick Keller’s 2025 album Heroes is a boldly expressive instrumental jazz album well worth playing and replaying.

 

RMR speaks to Rick Keller

RMR: Are you living in Las Vegas now? Where did you grow up and when did you start studying music and what are some of your earliest memories of studying saxophone and do you play other instruments too? What drew you to the saxophone and who are some of your sax heroes? Seems like a hard instrument to master?

Rick Keller: I live in Las Vegas. I grew up in North Syracuse, New York in the suburbs. I recall starting on the accordion around age 4 and learning to read music and stopped playing around age 7. In fifth grade I started taking saxophone lessons and never looked back.

The junior high school and high school band programs provided us with opportunities to excel and compete with other students locally and even nationally. I heard “Bird” Cannonball Phil Woods and John Coltrane and many of the Maynard Ferguson saxophonists of the day like Bobby Militello as well as saxophonists like Tom Scott on the radio.

While finishing high school I auditioned for the studio music and jazz program at the University of Miami and found a 4 year home to study intensively about the history and techniques of jazz music.

 

RMR: When did you get the idea to write and record and music on your 2025 album Heroes? It’s great you decided to balance the sound of Heroes with both your early jazz heroes and more recent fusion icons. What era of music most impacted your music? Was rock music an influence or was it jazz for you from the start?

Rick Keller: The idea to focus on the Heroes project came around 2023 just after Covid. I thought to write a very improvised record but did not have a working group of musicians to realize such a deeply intuitive and recording that required lots of reading each other’s minds type of experiment reminiscent of many of Miles Davis bands.

I decided that the song “For Pat” and “Tell Me Now” would serve as a great beginning to create the Heroes concept. Especially because I was buying cut-outs and first pressing records at the local music store and they were Weather Report and Return To Forever and the Brecker Brothers records as I can remember.

It is hard to say that one era of music has impacted me the most. But as far as main stream pop and rock and roll bands like Led Zeppelin, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Blood Sweat & Tears, Genesis, Yes, and many others caught my attention and I was fascinated by the soloists as well as each artist and groups extremely unique sound and playing style.

 

RMR: How many albums have you recorded and released under your own name over the years and how does Heroes compare sound wise and compositionally to your earlier works? Have done session work and also film scoring?

Rick Keller: I have written many compositions that have sometimes made it to become recorded and documented but many that have not. I would say that I have really completed 3 full length solo releases. There are a handful of compositions that I still need to remix and release as well like for instance the electronica songs I have composed. These take time to produce and meticulously work on each sound. It is a very tedious process at times.

Writing music that can be performed by a group is probably the most satisfying as you immediately have the results. I have composed and produced a modest catalog of production music that includes scoring cues and are specifically written for film and TV. I am always looking for opportunities to collaborate with directors and editors to compose specifically to picture.

 

RMR: Talk about featuring guitarist Camilo Velandia on the Pat Metheny tribute track “For Pat”. What impact did Metheny have on your music and what Metheny-era and albums from that era impressed you most?

Rick Keller: Pat Metheny shaped my sensibilities for writing in that his music was profoundly positive and introspective and just the most joyous sound that I had ever heard. From 1978's Pat Metheny Group to Off Ramp to Still Life Talking and Full Circle and the Joni Shadows And Light record as well as 80/81 while I was in college the Pat Metheny sound was from that point a major influence and continues to be a happy place in my spirit as I hear his playing and songs in my head.

I featured the amazing Camilo Velandia on 3 of the tracks on Heroes, first on “For Pat” as I wanted someone specifically not to try and copy the “Pat Metheny” sound and phrasing but to pay tribute to it in their own approach and sound. Camilo did it exactly in a very personal way. On “Distant Passage” I asked him if he would more closely emulate the sound and playing of my musical hero Alan Holdsworth. Camilo gladly accepted the challenge and played very much as I was hearing the guitar, which by the way was recorded after our session in Las Vegas. I left a chorus for him to solo to. He also played 12 string and electric guitars on “Hymn”, the final piece of the Heroes record.

 

RMR: Some of the Heroes tracks are more impressionistic and some are more fusion based. The longer pieces like “Distant Passage” are almost progressive instrumental and meditative in scope. You must have some prog blood in your when you cite Bruford and Holdsworth from those first two Bruford solo albums. Again, the synths of Dave Siegel and Camillo on guitar echoing the Holdsworth style mightily.

Rick Keller: I mentioned before that more instrumental a band on the radio was the more I gravitated to it. Certainly compositional styles of the bands I came to love were shaped by hearing Alan Holdsworth the first time on a recording my father brought home from fusion violinist Jean Luc Ponty. He also brought home a Deodato recording and Issac Hayes Shaft soundtrack. This collection of music of the day for me is a direct connection to how the Heroes recording was shaped. I heard Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters and I was captivated for the rest of eternity!

 

RMR: How did you put the Heroes band together? Seems like a lot of players to work with. How did you record the musicians? Live or overdubs? What were some of the high points and challenges to recording, mixing and mastering the Heroes album?

Rick Keller: Like most leaders and composers you play with are people you are familiar with, if and whenever possible. Certainly making the Heroes record I chose specific players that I am currently most in touch with and that have the sensibilities to interpret my music

As I hear it. Much of the music from Heroes was performed together on separate occasions. I tried to capture the band feeling and sound as much as possible. The arrangements and solos and everything about the process was to make it feel as natural as possible. Most solos are one or second takes as were the recordings. Some overdubs but generally what you hear is how it was played.

The Cycle Of Life is a slight exception as Tim Sellars overdubbed percussion to my sequenced percussion layouts and I removed most of the tracks but not all as time did not permit us to overdub all the percussion as we would have like to have. Tim is amazing and I knew when we first met that I would have some projects that he would be perfect for. I worked very hard on the mixing of this record as I was trying to meet a deadline to have it finished and mastered to submit for Grammy® consideration the end of August 2025.

Gil Kaupp is one of my dearest friends and a master trumpet player and a profoundly knowledgeable music technology expert. Gil has built a mixing and mastering business and is trusted by many artists to mix and or master their creative projects. He mastered my recording and gave me emotional support as I struggled to mix Heroes, which is my first complete album mix.

 

RMR: What saxophones and other instruments you play on the album and do you have any endorsements with sax companies?

Rick Keller: I played the saxes and flute tracks as well as didgeridoo. The sound palette includes drum and synth programming and sequencing as time did not permit for every sound that I imagined be realized by the musicians that so generously contributed to Heroes. As it has been said many times, you never finish a mix, you just release it. I am currently endorsed by Trevor James saxophones and flutes, D’addario woodwinds, BG France, Ollo Audio tools and Reedgeek as well as Eric Falcon woodwinds.

 

RMR: Tell us about the “Cycle Of Life” part of the album. The 6 part suite sounds different from the harder-edged fusion type tracks on tracks 1 through 8. I see the guitarist Sean Carbone plays on most of the tracks. How did you meet Sean and how would you compare his guitar sound to Camilo for example?

Rick Keller: “Cycle Of Life” is a tribute to the group Oregon and Ralph Towner. I composed 5 of the pieces this past June to complete the recording and had purchased 2 books of Towner transcriptions and listened to countless hours of Oregon which I had done all along throughout my career.

Sean Carbone is a young very talented guitarist in Las Vegas and a friend of mine recommended him to me to join me the Spring Las Vegas Jazz society festival. He played so perfectly to compliment my musical sensibilities that I approached him for the very elaborate nylon string parts I wrote for the first 5 of the “Cycle Of Life” suite. Sean also played funk guitar and sound FX on “Slow It Down” he is extremely versatile and a great cat to play with!

 

RMR: What other plans to you have as far as writing, recording and any live concerts in 2025 and into the new year already? What kind of album would you like to do next?

Rick Keller: A lifetime of music can be filled with so many live and recording experiences. I love to tour and look forward to touring with the music from Heroes while working on the next recordings I have planned. One will be a very eclectic mostly duos record and the other big goal I have is to score for full orchestra and saxophone.