"Raphe puts his technical mastery of the trumpet to bravura use throughout ConSequences, pushing off from the initial structure established by the tunes into those extremes of expression where he is so at home. His sound is huge -- just one note tells you that -- but there's more to his playing than a big tone. Raphe has mastered the whole jazz vocabulary of the instrument. He can nail ridiculously high notes, execute the fastest lines with absolute clarity, and manipulate menacing growls, shrieks of anger and cries of joy with absolute precision. . . . His methodology is another way of doing what improvisers have done in America since the turn of the century: express the exhiliration of freedom and capture the joy that lies as deep within us as sorrow." --Ed Hazell, liner notes

jazziz magazine critics' picks top ten recordings 1999
cadence magazine reviewers' choice top ten recordings 1999
cadence magazine readers poll top recordings 1999