Whatever idioms flow into the music that he’s playing—jazz, Afro-Cuban, R&B—Rodriguez speaks them with conviction. It’s no wonder that he’s held down the bass chair for bandleaders as diverse as Joe Locke, Arturo O’Farrill, and Branford Marsalis. In his own music, Rodriguez likes to explore the fluid spaces between different styles, pushing the music in different directions from gig to gig. In a previous interview with Jazz Speaks, Rodriguez described this shape-shifting approach: