Javier Subatin was born in Buenos Aires in 1985.
At the age of ten, he felt the calling for music and guitar playing. When he was 14 he started composing music for guitar and different ensembles and his curiosity about music led him to study jazz guitar, improvisation, and composition with several teachers.
In 2005 he completed the first year of his Bachelor's in Electroacoustic Composition at Quilmes University and in 2008 he got a Bachelor’s degree in popular music with a specialization in Tango guitar. Between 2012 and 2013 he studied music production at INARTEC. In 2014, he moved to Paris where he worked on different projects including Tango ensembles, private teaching, and composing original music for a stage production.
In the past years, he was selected to participate in various international contests and festivals such as the Montreux Jazz Guitar Competition 2015, Komeda Jazz Composers Competition 2017, the Euroradio Jazz Competition 2019 at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, So What’s Next? Jazz Festival 2020, Südtirol Jazz Festival 2019, and Gaudeamus Music Week 2020.
He started his path as a composer and guitarist in the European jazz scene in 2018 with the release of his first recording “Autotelic” and in the course of three years, he released four recordings. Additionally, in 2018 and 2019, he won a grant from Fundação GDA for the production of his second album “Variaciones” and for his fourth album "Mountains".
His first recording, “Autotelic”, is based on a duo of piano and guitar with the renowned Portuguese jazz pianist João Paulo Esteves da Silva. His second album, “Variaciones”, has the collaboration of some of the most relevant jazz musicians from Portugal. His third recording (Trance), which was released by Ears&Eyes Records in November 2020, is based on a trio of guitar, alto saxophone, and drums. With this project, he performed in festivals such as Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Südtirol Jazz Festival, and Somersby Out Jazz. In 2021, he released two more recordings. "Mountains" is a jazz trio recording plus guests featuring some of the most active improvisers of the current jazz Portuguese scene (Demian, Cabaud, Pedro Melo Alves, João Mortágua, Samuel Gapp, and Ricardo Jacinto). His last release "PULSAR" is a solo recording in which Javier explores the sonic possibilities of the guitar.
In 2020, he founded the Composers and Improvisers Community Project (CICP) where musicians from different parts of the world release solo performances in video format and collaborative recordings produced remotely. In 2021, Javier produced a series of 20 live-streaming performances with the support of the Antena 2 radio station, and he co-founded the new international record label based in Portugal "Habitable Records".
Currently, Javier is based in Antwerp where he is pursuing a master's degree in live electronics.
Quotes
"The history of contemporary jazz is happening here."
"[...] Very well done, rich in discoveries, in complexity, but never boring because it always carries a fresh breath."
Yves Dorison @ culturejazz.fr
"Absolutely remarkable and not to be missed."
Rui Eduardo Paes @ Jazz.pt
"Mountains finds Javier Subatin building on a series of strong recordings in the past few years"
Jim Marks @ Free Jazz Blog
"Subatin achieves a remarkable balance of parameters, uniting brain and physicality, and this is not exactly common. Just as it is not common, among us, to propose something that very obviously enters the domains of exploratory music, but has strong roots in the post-bop tradition of jazz."
Rui Eduardo Paes @ Jazz.pt
"In “Pulsar”, the guitarist experiments and takes risks, but he does it with truly musical material. There is melody, there is harmony, and there is rhythm. And there is experimentation, there is exploration, there is investigation. And much more. There is a world of possibilities of which the pioneering has only just begun. It's a fascinating album for its concept, method, and execution."
João Morado @ Jazz.pt