Twin Talk Embrace the Joy of the Unexpected on New Album Delights

After nearly fifteen years of making music together, Chicago trio Twin Talk has reached a point where anticipation and surprise have become part of the same musical instinct. On Delights, the group’s fifth studio album, tenor saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi, bassist and vocalist Katie Ernst, and drummer Andrew Green turn years of shared experience into music that is intricate, spontaneous, deeply intuitive and, above all, playful.

Due November 6, 2026 via Shifting Paradigm Records, Delights features eleven original compositions that showcase a trio with an exceptionally developed collective language. The music can be lyrical and spacious one moment, knotty and bracing the next, but even at its most complex it retains a sense of movement and discovery.

The title is deliberately understated, even slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it captures something essential about the album. Twin Talk has never been a band interested in following the most predictable path through a composition. Instead, Laurenzi, Ernst and Green treat their written material as an invitation to interact, improvise and react to one another in real time.

That approach has been cultivated over years of playing together. While each musician maintains an active career outside the trio — Laurenzi tours with singer-songwriter Bill Callahan, Ernst performs with Iron & Wine, and Green is deeply embedded in Chicago’s indie and jazz communities — Twin Talk has developed into a musical home for all three.

Their live performances are known for embracing uncertainty, with the trio often abandoning fixed set lists and calling tunes on the fly. Recent appearances at Big Ears Festival and the Chicago Jazz Festival have further demonstrated the group’s ability to make spontaneous decisions feel completely natural. That spirit continues with a performance at Jazzfest Berlin on November 1, where Delights will receive its world premiere, just days before the album’s official release.

As with the group’s 2024 album Twin Talk Live, Laurenzi wrote the majority of the material on Delights. The opening track, “Red Cent,” immediately reveals a more forceful side of his tenor playing, with its intensity balanced by Ernst’s sharply defined bass work and Green’s instinctive use of space.

“Heavy Nice” pushes the trio into an elastic groove, with Laurenzi navigating unexpected turns while Ernst and Green constantly adjust the rhythmic landscape beneath him. On “Super Official,” meanwhile, an initially relaxed surface becomes something more unpredictable as Green introduces subtle disruptions that encourage the other musicians to rethink the material around him.

Ernst’s compositions bring another shade to the record. Her voice adds a striking warmth to “Northwest,” where the trio creates a spacious environment that allows the vocal performance to become another instrumental colour. “Shadow Kid” ventures further toward contemporary chamber music, combining Ernst’s ethereal vocals with Laurenzi’s low-register tenor and Green’s insistent drumming.

Green contributes the compact “Mississippi,” followed by “Both And,” a short but intricate piece built around shifting phrases and sudden changes. The track demonstrates just how precisely the three musicians can operate together without allowing that precision to become rigid.

Throughout Delights, complexity is never treated simply as a technical achievement. Instead, it becomes a mechanism for conversation. The compositions establish frameworks that the musicians can inhabit, stretch and reshape, constantly moving between individual statements and collective responses.

That balance becomes especially apparent as the album approaches its conclusion with “Similar Grit.” By this point, the distinctions between delicacy and intensity, composition and improvisation, restraint and expression have largely dissolved. What remains is the sound of three musicians responding to one another with the confidence that comes from years of shared musical experience.

The album was recorded with engineer Steve Shirk, whose work also helped shape the sound of Twin Talk Live. His recording captures the trio’s immediacy while preserving the fine details that make their music so engaging. Bass resonance, saxophone texture and individual percussion sounds remain clearly defined, creating the sensation of being in the room as the music unfolds.

That immediacy is crucial to Twin Talk’s identity. The trio’s music depends not only on what has been written, but on what happens between the musicians once the composition begins. Each player has enough understanding of the others to predict where the music might go, but enough individuality to derail those expectations.

It is that combination of familiarity and unpredictability that makes Delights so compelling. Nearly fifteen years into their collaboration, Twin Talk have not settled into a formula. Instead, they have used their accumulated chemistry to make the music more open.

The result is a record that is rigorous without feeling academic, spontaneous without feeling unfocused, and sophisticated without losing its sense of fun. Delights finds its energy in the unexpected — in the moments when three musicians who know each other extremely well still manage to surprise one another.

Twin Talk will perform at the Sound & Gravity Festival in Chicago on September 6, followed by the Delights world premiere at Jazzfest Berlin on November 1. A Chicago record release show is scheduled for November 13, with a performance at ROZZ-TOX in Rock Island, Illinois, on November 14.

Delights by Twin Talk will be released November 6, 2026 via Shifting Paradigm Records.

Sylvie Courvoisier’s New Quartet Amalthea Unleashes a World of Daring Jazz on Pyroclastic Records

Pianist and composer Sylvie Courvoisier has assembled a remarkable new quartet for Amalthea, an adventurous new album arriving November 13, 2026 via Pyroclastic Records. Featuring vibraphonist Patricia Brennan, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Dan Weiss, the record brings together four distinctive musical voices in a setting where intricate composition, fearless improvisation and extraordinary virtuosity collide.

The name Amalthea comes from Greek mythology, where Amalthea is described as the nursemaid of the infant Zeus, sometimes portrayed as a woman and sometimes as a goat. In the goat version of the story, her broken horn becomes the cornucopia, a magical source of seemingly limitless food and drink. For Courvoisier, the symbolism offered an ideal name for a quartet whose musical possibilities seem equally abundant.

“Patricia, Dan and Thomas are such amazing musicians,” Courvoisier says. “Each member of this ensemble brings a distinctive voice, a strong sense of identity, and a deep commitment to improvisation.” She adds that the musicians are capable of taking on her most intricate compositions without hesitation, allowing her to challenge both the band and herself.

The quartet was originally brought together in response to a commission from Brooklyn’s Roulette, supported by funding from the New York State Council on the Arts. Its first performance took place at Roulette in 2024, marking the beginning of a musical partnership that Courvoisier deliberately designed to be different from many of her previous ensembles.

Throughout her career, Courvoisier has often worked with musicians with whom she has developed long-standing creative relationships. Her established trio pairs her with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Kenny Wollesen, while her 2023 album Chimaera expanded that core with trumpeters Wadada Leo Smith and Nate Wooley and Austrian guitarist Christian Fennesz.

For Amalthea, however, Courvoisier chose musicians who were all somewhat younger than herself and with whom she had relatively limited prior experience. Thomas Morgan had previously recorded with Courvoisier on two albums co-led by violinist Mark Feldman in 2010 and 2011, but the pair had not worked together for many years. Courvoisier had only performed with Dan Weiss once before the quartet's formation, while her relationship with Patricia Brennan was relatively new, emerging from a duo recording session that Brennan had invited her to join.

That sense of discovery is central to Amalthea. The album is a thrilling exercise in balancing complexity and spontaneity, with compositions that can shift direction and tempo at breathtaking speed while retaining a strong emotional core. Courvoisier has written new material specifically for the quartet, while also revisiting pieces from Chimaera and her 2018 trio album D’Agala.

The result is music that demands close attention without sacrificing passion. Dense harmonic passages, abrupt rhythmic changes, intricate ensemble writing and expansive improvisational sections constantly interact, creating a sound that feels both meticulously constructed and completely alive.

A particularly compelling element is the relationship between Courvoisier’s piano and Brennan’s vibraphone. Their interplay extends Courvoisier’s long-running fascination with what she loosely describes as “two keyboard” ensembles. For her, the combination of two harmonic instruments provides the density, harmonic richness, complexity and bitonality necessary to realize the musical worlds she imagines.

That concept has appeared throughout Courvoisier’s career, from her earliest ensemble work with barrel organ player Pierre Charlal to more recent projects including her two-piano interpretation of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring with Cory Smythe and her duo album Bone Bells with guitarist Mary Halvorson.

Brennan’s own conservatory background makes the partnership especially compelling. Like Courvoisier, she possesses a deep grounding in both contemporary classical music and modern jazz, allowing the two musicians to move naturally between precisely written passages and open improvisation.

Courvoisier drew inspiration from contemporary composers including Sofia Gubaidulina and György Ligeti while creating the music, giving herself room to explore the meeting point between her classical influences and the freedom of the New York avant-jazz scene.

The quartet’s generational dynamic is also reflected in the album’s title. Beyond the mythological connection, Amalthea carries a maternal resonance that mirrors Courvoisier’s desire to nurture and learn from the younger musicians around her.

“I wanted to have all new people in this band,” Courvoisier explains. While the musicians are presented with substantial written material designed around their considerable technical abilities, she has deliberately left space for each member to bring their own musical vocabulary to the pieces. The goal is not simply to have the musicians interpret her compositions, but to allow their individual perspectives to reshape them.

That philosophy lies at the heart of Courvoisier’s music. Her work has consistently occupied the space between composition and improvisation, European contemporary classical traditions and the restless energy of New York’s experimental jazz community.

A Brooklyn-based native of Lausanne, Switzerland, Courvoisier has built an international reputation as a pianist and composer capable of moving effortlessly between concert halls, jazz clubs and experimental performance spaces. Her achievements include the Swiss Grand Prix and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Music Award in 2025.

The New York Times has described her as a pianist of “equal parts audacity and poise,” an apt description for an artist whose music can be simultaneously playful, ferocious, disciplined and unpredictable.

Her extensive list of collaborators includes John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith, Evan Parker, Ikue Mori, Ned Rothenberg, Fred Frith, Andrew Cyrille, Mark Feldman, Christian Fennesz, Nate Wooley and Mary Halvorson. Across these collaborations and her own projects, Courvoisier has continually crossed stylistic and geographical borders without sacrificing her individual identity.

Amalthea feels like a natural continuation of that journey, but also something distinctly new. With Brennan, Morgan and Weiss, Courvoisier has created an ensemble capable of handling her most demanding compositions while contributing ideas and personalities of their own.

The album’s striking artwork, a black-on-orange painting by French farmer and artist Philippe Azéma, reflects another of Courvoisier’s passions: art brut. Her connection to the movement dates back to the Collection de l’Art Brut museum in Lausanne, the city where she grew up, and its raw, unconventional aesthetic provides an apt visual counterpart to the music.

Amalthea promises an abundance of ideas in the truest sense of its mythological name: a record overflowing with sound, invention, precision and possibility. It is the work of an artist still pushing against boundaries, while creating an environment where younger musicians can challenge her, inspire her and ultimately help her hear her own music in new ways.

Amalthea by Sylvie Courvoisier, featuring Patricia Brennan, Thomas Morgan and Dan Weiss, will be released November 13, 2026 via Pyroclastic Records.

Morgan Freeman’s ‘Symphonic Blues Experience’ Brings a Century of Blues to Life

 

Morgan Freeman has spent a lifetime listening to the blues. Now, the Oscar-winning actor, producer and longtime champion of the genre has brought that passion to life with Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience, a new full-length collection that traces a century of blues history through the voices of some of the music’s most respected artists and an expansive orchestral sound.

Released today, the 12-track album takes listeners on a journey through the evolution of the blues, beginning with Blind Willie Johnson’s haunting 1927 recording “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” and moving through landmark songs and contemporary interpretations, concluding with “I Lied to You,” featured on the soundtrack to the film Sinners.

For Freeman, the project is about far more than revisiting a beloved musical tradition. The blues represents resilience, history and cultural memory — a living art form that has survived, evolved and continued to speak to generations of listeners.

Freeman serves as narrator and producer on the project, joined by an impressive collection of blues artists including Taj Mahal, Keb’ Mo’, Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell and Shemekia Copeland. Collectively, the four musicians and producers have amassed 42 GRAMMY nominations and 12 wins, bringing decades of experience and an intimate understanding of the blues to the recording.

The album also puts the spotlight on a new generation of Mississippi musicians, many of whom regularly perform at Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, the venue Freeman co-founded 25 years ago. Ground Zero has become an important home for the blues in the Mississippi Delta, the region where so much of the music’s history was forged.

The recordings were made at Royal Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, a location with deep roots in American music. Producer Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell helped shape the sessions there, while the music was given another dimension through the addition of Chineke! Orchestra, Europe’s pioneering majority-Black and ethnically diverse orchestra. Their contributions were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London under the direction of renowned music director, conductor and producer Martin Gellner.

The resulting sound brings together two powerful musical worlds. The raw, expressive character of Mississippi and Memphis blues meets the scale and sweep of a symphony orchestra, creating arrangements that respect the original spirit of the songs while opening them up to new possibilities.

Across the album, listeners encounter a remarkable range of performers and interpretations. Super Chikan and Mark Yacovone take on “Crossroads,” Taj Mahal delivers “Death Letter Blues,” Lady Adrena appears on “Dust My Broom,” and Alvin Youngblood Hart brings his voice to “The Thrill Is Gone.” Other highlights include “Cadillac Assembly Line,” “Somebody’s Knockin’,” “Traveling Riverside Blues,” “I’ll Take You There,” “Love Me or Leave Me” and “Someday.”

Shemekia Copeland and Luther Dickinson feature on “Traveling Riverside Blues,” while Tierinii Jackson and students from the Stax Music Academy appear on “I’ll Take You There,” further emphasizing the album’s connection between blues history and its continuing legacy.

Freeman’s relationship with the music extends well beyond the recording studio. Through Ground Zero Blues Club, he has spent decades helping preserve a physical space for the blues in Clarksdale. He also co-founded the Ground Zero Arts Foundation, an organization dedicated to preserving the blues in Mississippi while providing local artists with economic assistance, healthcare services and other forms of support.

That mission gives Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience an important purpose beyond the music itself. All proceeds from the album will benefit the Ground Zero Arts Foundation, helping support the artists and communities that continue to carry the blues forward.

What makes the project particularly compelling is the way it connects generations. Blind Willie Johnson’s deeply moving recording from nearly a century ago sits alongside music from some of today’s leading blues performers, while young musicians and students are brought into the story. The album becomes not simply a collection of covers, but a musical timeline — one that demonstrates how the blues has continually transformed without losing its emotional core.

From the Mississippi Delta to Memphis, from legendary bluesmen and women to emerging artists, and from intimate club performances to the grandeur of a full orchestra, Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience celebrates a genre that has proved remarkably enduring.

It is, ultimately, a love letter to the blues — a reminder of where the music came from, the people who carried it forward, and the artists who continue to ensure that its voice will not be forgotten.

Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience is available now.

Nicolas Meier World Group Announce New Album ‘Elysian Drift’ — A Global Journey in Sound

The boundaries between jazz, world music and improvisation continue to blur on Elysian Drift, the forthcoming third album from the Nicolas Meier World Group. Set for release on August 28, 2026, the album finds guitarist and composer Nicolas Meier drawing on years of international touring, collaboration and musical exploration to create a collection of 13 new compositions filled with vibrant grooves, evocative melodies and the kind of fearless guitar solos that have become his signature.

Following the success of the group’s acclaimed albums Peaceful and Magnificent, Elysian Drift represents the next chapter in Nicolas Meier’s continuing musical journey. Once again, the music is inspired by the sounds, cultures and experiences encountered through years of travelling the world, bringing together influences from Spanish, Turkish, Balkan, Middle Eastern, North African and South American traditions within an improvisational jazz framework.

At the heart of the album is Meier’s remarkable palette of guitars. His use of fretted and fretless nylon-string guitars, steel-string and 12-string guitars, alongside the distinctive glissentar, gives the music an extraordinary range of colours and textures. The sound is further enriched by the interplay between Meier’s guitars and Richard Jones’ violin, while Demi Garcia Sabat’s percussion and Tom Mason’s acoustic bass provide a powerful rhythmic foundation.

The album also features pianist Alex Hutton and vocalist Randolph Matthews, with flamenco guitarist Jose Almarcha appearing as a special guest on nine tracks. Together, the musicians create a sound that feels simultaneously rooted in tradition and completely open to the possibilities of improvisation.

Meier’s musical path to Elysian Drift has been shaped by an unusually diverse range of experiences. He has toured the world with guitar legend Jeff Beck and collaborated extensively with jazz guitarist Pete Oxley, recording five albums together. He has also recorded and toured with Indonesian guitarist and composer Dewa Budjana in a project featuring bassist Jimmy Haslip, while producing work with singer Gabrielle Ducomble and exploring instrumental metal through his project My Dark Side.

His album Infinity brought together an equally formidable lineup, with Vinnie Colaiuta on drums and Jimmy Haslip on bass. Released internationally through Favored Nations, the label founded by Steve Vai, the album led to extensive touring across Europe and the United States, including a European tour supporting Steve Vai in 2022.

Those experiences have clearly fed into the evolution of the Nicolas Meier World Group. The previous album Peaceful inspired a 55-date tour, while Magnificent was followed by more than 100 concerts, establishing the group as a compelling live act as well as a recording project.

With Elysian Drift, Meier takes that accumulated experience and turns it into a new musical landscape. The album’s title is fitting: the music seems to drift freely between cultures, genres and moods, while the musicians remain tightly connected through rhythm, melody and improvisation.

Rather than simply reproducing traditional musical forms, Meier takes inspiration from them and reshapes their colours, rhythms and melodic ideas into something distinctly his own. The result is music that can move from intricate and atmospheric passages into driving grooves, expressive violin lines and explosive guitar improvisations.

The album will receive its official launch at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London on September 1, 2026, before the group heads into a programme of festivals and clubs. With the album arriving just days earlier, the London performance will offer audiences the first opportunity to experience Elysian Drift live in the setting for which the Nicolas Meier World Group’s music is arguably best suited.

Nicolas Meier World Group’s Elysian Drift is released August 28, 2026. The lineup features Nicolas Meier on fretted and fretless nylon-string, steel-string and 12-string guitars and glissentar; Alex Hutton on piano; Richard Jones on violin; Tom Mason on acoustic bass; Randolph Matthews on vocals; and Demi Garcia Sabat on percussion, with special guest Jose Almarcha on flamenco guitar.

After years of travelling, collaborating and exploring musical territories across the globe, Nicolas Meier appears ready to take listeners on another journey — one where world music, jazz, improvisation, powerful grooves and fearless guitar playing meet in a truly international sound.

Caleb Wheeler Curtis and Jason Moran Turn Jazz History Into a Living Conversation on Incantation

Jazz duos can be among the most revealing musical encounters. Strip away the safety net of a larger ensemble and there is nowhere to hide. Every note matters. Every pause matters. The musicians have to listen, react and trust each other in real time.

That spirit runs through Incantation, the compelling new album from multi-instrumentalist Caleb Wheeler Curtis and pianist Jason Moran, arriving October 23, 2026, on Imani Records.

Recorded in December 2025, Incantation is much more than a meeting between two exceptional musicians. It is a conversation across generations—a project that embraces jazz history while refusing to treat that history as something fixed or finished.

Curtis and Moran move effortlessly between original compositions, pieces from their own catalogs, music by friends and collaborators, and the work of musicians who helped shape the tradition. There are also two completely improvised performances, allowing the duo to venture into territory where there is no predetermined destination.

The result is music that feels deeply rooted and completely alive.

Curtis describes the album's title as an inadvertent echo of his acclaimed 2026 sextet album Ritual, but the connection goes deeper than the suggestion of ceremony. For Curtis, playing jazz is inherently an act of remembrance.

"This music is a call to the ancestors," he explains, acknowledging the musicians whose ideas continue to live inside the compositions being played today. The list of those influences is expansive: Thelonious Monk, Eric Dolphy, Johnny Hodges, Duke Ellington, Cannonball Adderley, Jaki Byard, Orrin Evans and Jason Moran himself.

The idea is particularly appropriate for an album featuring Moran, a musician whose own career has consistently explored the relationship between jazz history and contemporary creativity.

Moran has been described by Rolling Stone as "the most provocative thinker in current jazz," while Curtis has earned recognition as one of the more adventurous musicians working in jazz today. Together, they create a musical environment where history isn't simply referenced—it is reconsidered.

This isn't their first encounter.

Curtis and Moran previously recorded together on Freebird, the 2018 postmodern tribute to Charlie Parker. At the time, Moran was the established star appearing as a special guest with Curtis and the members of Walking Distance, then an emerging collective.

The album was subsequently recognized by The New York Times as one of the 20 best jazz albums of the year.

Nearly a decade later, the relationship has changed. Curtis has established himself as a formidable voice in his own right, expanding his musical vocabulary and developing an unusually broad instrumental palette.

He has become particularly associated with the stritch, the straight alto saxophone famously championed by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, while also adding trumpet to his arsenal. His work has taken him into collaborations with Orrin Evans, Eric Revis, Gerald Cleaver, Justin Faulkner and others, as well as into Ember, the adventurous trio he co-founded.

That growth is evident throughout Incantation.

The album opens with Curtis's soprano saxophone on "That Which Cannot Be Replaced," a composition originally recorded by the then-unnamed Ember on Curtis's 2019 album New Year. His soprano immediately establishes the intimate scale of the project, with Moran responding not as an accompanist but as an equal participant in the conversation.

Curtis contributes four compositions in all. Alongside "That Which Cannot Be Replaced" are the newly written "Incantation," "Ain't No Storm" from his 2021 album of the same name, and "Flotation Device and the Shivers," originally recorded by Ember on 2023's August in March. "Ain't No Storm" returns at the end as a brief, meditative coda.

Moran brings two compositions from his own catalog.

"Gangsterism on a River" originally appeared on Black Stars, his 2001 collaboration with his Bandwagon trio and legendary saxophonist Sam Rivers. Here, the piece takes on a different character within the stripped-down duo setting.

"Restin'," originally recorded on Moran's 2005 album Same Mother, moves even deeper into a slow, brooding atmosphere, demonstrating just how much can change when a composition is reduced to two voices.

But some of the most revealing moments come when there is no composition at all.

"One Hundred Years" and "Archaeology" are free improvisations, and they demonstrate the remarkable trust between Curtis and Moran. "Archaeology" is especially significant because Curtis plays trumpet, an instrument he only recently began incorporating into his musical vocabulary.

He first explored trumpet with Ember, where the trio's environment allowed him to experiment without fear of failure. A duo with Moran, however, offered a very different challenge.

Curtis describes the experience as sensitive and vulnerable, saying he spent much of the session looking at the trumpet sitting on its stand and wondering when he would finally take the leap.

He did so on "Archaeology," the final piece recorded for the album.

That willingness to take risks is central to what makes Incantation work. The music isn't attempting to demonstrate how much the musicians know. Instead, it demonstrates how willing they are to listen.

The album's selections further reinforce its sense of musical community.

"Miss Nancy," written by saxophonist Arthur Blythe, arrives after a brief reminiscence from Moran about his mentor Jaki Byard. Curtis has long championed Blythe as an important and underappreciated influence.

"Tiramisu for Two" comes from Ember bassist Noah Garabedian and was originally recorded on New Year. "Big Small," meanwhile, was written by Orrin Evans, the founder of Imani Records and one of Curtis's longtime collaborators.

Taken together, the repertoire creates something resembling a musical family tree.

Some branches lead backward to Blythe, Byard, Ellington, Monk and other giants. Others lead toward Curtis's own collaborators and peers. Moran sits somewhere in the middle, simultaneously representing the history of the music and its continuing evolution.

That sense of community is one of the qualities Curtis most admires about Moran's work.

For Curtis, Moran's music consistently connects "community, place, time, and history," creating bridges between musicians and generations. Incantation embraces precisely that philosophy.

It also illustrates why jazz remains such a vital art form. The music's history isn't simply something to be preserved. It is something musicians can enter, question, reinterpret and extend.

Curtis and Moran aren't recreating the past on Incantation. They are carrying it forward.

And perhaps that is the album's most compelling message: the ancestors are still present, but they don't dictate where the music goes next.

That decision belongs to the musicians in the room.

For Curtis and Moran, the conversation is wide open.

Incantation will be released October 23, 2026, via Imani Records. The duo will celebrate the album's release with a performance at National Sawdust in Brooklyn on December 12.

For listeners who believe the best jazz is simultaneously connected to its history and unwilling to be confined by it, Incantation promises to be a particularly rewarding encounter.

James Brandon Lewis Connects Dvořák, Black Music and the Continuing Evolution of Jazz on Calling Antonín

James Brandon Lewis has never been content to simply look backward. Even when he draws inspiration from the giants who came before him, his music has a restless quality—always searching for another possibility, another connection, another note.

That spirit is at the heart of Calling Antonín, the new album from Lewis and his Red Lily ensemble, due October 23 on TAO Forms. The project takes an unexpected journey into the music and legacy of Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, particularly the three years he spent in the United States beginning in 1892.

For Lewis, however, this isn't simply an exploration of classical music. It's an investigation into the roots of American music itself—and the fascinating connections between Dvořák, African-American spirituals, jazz and the generations of musicians who followed.

The timing is particularly significant for Lewis. Fresh from being named Tenor Saxophonist of the Year in the DownBeat Critics Poll, receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition and completing a celebrated engagement at New York's Village Vanguard with his quartet, he continues to establish himself as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary jazz.

Critics have taken notice. DownBeat has described Lewis as an artist "always looking for the next note," while NPR Music has called him a "righteous new classic of the improvising avant-garde." The Guardian has gone even further, describing his saxophone sound as "one of the fiercest sounds in modern jazz."

Calling Antonín finds that sound exploring a composer whose relationship with America was considerably more complicated—and influential—than his place in classical music history might initially suggest.

Dvořák came to the United States in 1892 to lead the National Conservatory of Music of America, an institution founded by Jeannette Thurber, an ambitious patron who wanted to create a uniquely American musical tradition. Dvořák believed that tradition could be found not by imitating European composers, but by looking to the music already being created in America.

He became particularly interested in African-American spirituals and Native American music. He also formed a friendship with Harry Burleigh, an African-American composer and student at the conservatory who became Dvořák's assistant. Burleigh introduced Dvořák to spirituals, including "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," helping expose the composer to a musical tradition that would profoundly influence his thinking.

Those connections eventually found their way into Dvořák's celebrated New World Symphony.

Lewis became fascinated by this history while researching a project that originally began nearly a decade ago. In 2016, bassist and composer William Parker contacted him about creating music for a Dvořák-themed production by the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater. The project had previously been championed by trumpeter Roy Campbell, to whom Calling Antonín is dedicated.

Lewis agreed to become musical director and began digging deeply into Dvořák's life, his American experience and the musical relationships surrounding him.

What he discovered was a remarkable lineage.

Through Dvořák and Burleigh, Lewis began following a musical path that eventually connected to figures such as Duke Ellington. Maurice Peress's book Dvořák to Ellington helped illuminate a broader network of teachers and musicians whose influence stretched across generations, including Will Marion Cook, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and Eubie Blake.

For Lewis, the story isn't about placing jazz inside a classical framework. It's about recognizing that American music has always been interconnected, constantly borrowing, transforming and reinventing itself.

That idea becomes the foundation for Calling Antonín.

The album's nine compositions are Lewis originals, but many are variations on, or inspired by, pieces Dvořák wrote during his American period. Others reflect Lewis's own personal relationship to the composer and the history surrounding him.

The first preview, "Dilemma of Hearts," offers perhaps the clearest example of how Lewis approaches the material. Inspired by the complicated relationship between Dvořák and his wife's sister, the composition takes the theme from the final movement of Dvořák's New World Symphony and transforms it into something darker and more mournful.

Rather than presenting the familiar melody straightforwardly, Lewis turns it into a dirge, surrounding the theme with layers of simultaneous free improvisation. It's a striking example of how the past can become raw material for something entirely new.

The Red Lily ensemble gives Lewis an unusually rich palette with which to explore these ideas. The group features cornetist Kirk Knuffke, violinist Melanie Dyer, cellist Tomeka Reid, bassist Joshua Abrams and drummer Chad Taylor—musicians who, like Lewis, occupy important places in today's adventurous American jazz scene.

This is the third Red Lily album, following 2021's Jesup Wagon, a tribute to inventor George Washington Carver that was named Album of the Year in the 2022 DownBeat Critics Poll, and 2023's For Mahalia, With Love, Lewis's powerful evocation of gospel legend Mahalia Jackson.

Lewis has described Red Lily as "regal, majestic" and as what brilliance might sound like if it could be transformed into sound. On Calling Antonín, that description takes on another dimension as the ensemble moves between written melodies, improvisation, chamber-like textures and explosive rhythmic passages.

The result is part historical investigation, part tribute and part musical conversation across centuries.

And perhaps that is what makes Calling Antonín so compelling. Lewis isn't attempting to recreate Dvořák. He is asking what happens when Dvořák's ideas enter the hands of musicians living and creating in 2026.

The answer is a reminder that jazz remains a living tradition precisely because it refuses to stand still.

The musical journey that began with spirituals, ragtime and early American composition continued through swing, bebop, funk, rock and countless other forms before arriving at today's improvisers. Lewis now adds his own chapter to that continuing story.

Dvořák once looked to America for the musical ingredients that could help define an American sound. More than a century later, James Brandon Lewis is looking back at Dvořák—and then pushing the music forward again.

Calling Antonín will be released October 23 on TAO Forms. The album features "Spirit of the Living God," "Lento," "Dilemma of Hearts," "Calling Antonín," "Going Home," "Ode to P.L.D.," "I Want Jesus to Walk With Me," "Finale - Humoresque" and "O' Rebicku."

Lewis and Red Lily will also take the music on the road, with European performances scheduled in Paris on October 27, Le Mans on October 29, Milan on November 7 and Dresden on November 11.

For an artist who has built his reputation by constantly challenging the boundaries of contemporary jazz, Calling Antonín feels like a natural next step: a journey into the past that ultimately points toward the future.

Frank Sinatra Returns to His Room: Celebrating 60 Years of Sinatra at the Sands

 

When Frank Sinatra walked onto the stage of the Copa Room at The Sands in Las Vegas in January 1966, he looked out at a packed house and delivered one of his most memorable opening lines:

“How did all these people get in my room?”

The joke landed because, in a very real sense, the room belonged to him.

Las Vegas was Sinatra’s kind of town. The city’s glamour, late nights, celebrity culture and anything-goes atmosphere suited the man who had become known as the Chairman of the Board. At 50, Sinatra was entering what he called the “September of his years,” but there was nothing autumnal about his command of a stage.

Backed by Count Basie and His Orchestra and arranged and conducted by Quincy Jones, Sinatra was in his element. The combination was formidable: one of America's greatest singers fronting one of the greatest swing orchestras in jazz, with Jones shaping the arrangements and keeping the entire operation moving with precision and fire.

Those legendary Sands engagements would soon be immortalized on Sinatra at the Sands, Sinatra’s first official live album. Released by Reprise Records in July 1966, the original double LP reached No. 9 on the Billboard 200 and went on to become one of the defining live recordings of Sinatra's career. The album was also certified Gold by the RIAA.

Now, 60 years later, Frank Sinatra Enterprises and Capitol/UMe are returning to that remarkable week in Las Vegas with an anniversary campaign that expands the story considerably.

The January 1966 Sands residency represented a remarkable convergence of talent.

Sinatra and Count Basie had already established a successful musical partnership through Sinatra-Basie in 1962 and It Might as Well Be Swing in 1964. Quincy Jones, meanwhile, had worked with Sinatra on the latter album and was now conducting the Basie orchestra behind him.

The chemistry was unmistakable.

Performing two shows a night — at 8:15 p.m. and midnight — Sinatra could move effortlessly from swagger to tenderness, from comedy to melancholy, from the sophisticated balladry of the Great American Songbook to the sheer exhilaration of a big-band swinger.

The repertoire was built around songs that had become synonymous with Sinatra: “Come Fly with Me,” “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “The September of My Years,” “Street of Dreams,” “One for My Baby,” “Fly Me to the Moon” and “You Make Me Feel So Young.”

There were also the songs that reflected Sinatra's current era. “It Was a Very Good Year,” “Don’t Worry ’Bout Me,” “Luck Be a Lady” and “My Kind of Town” all belonged to the evolving Reprise-era Sinatra.

And then there were the surprises.

“Get Me to the Church on Time,” from My Fair Lady, gave Sinatra an opportunity to unleash his comic timing and showmanship. His extended “Tea Break” monologues offered another side of the performance — the nightclub entertainer who could seemingly talk to an audience as easily as he sang to it.

Basie and his orchestra were equally central to the experience. Their “One O’Clock Jump,” along with instrumental performances such as “Makin’ Whoopee!” and “All of Me,” demonstrated that the band was not simply backing Sinatra. They were part of the show.

When Sinatra at the Sands was released in July 1966, listeners were given a carefully selected portrait of those nights rather than a single complete performance.

The album captured the unique atmosphere of the Copa Room — Sinatra joking with the crowd, the band swinging behind him, and the singer shifting from intimacy to theatrical bravado almost without warning.

The original album became an important document of Sinatra as a live performer. It was not simply a collection of songs. It was a representation of an entertainer controlling a room.

Over the years, Sinatra at the Sands has received several reissues and expanded editions, including a 1998 CD edition and a 2003 DVD-Audio release featuring Elliot Mazer’s surround mix.

But there was still far more music in the vault.

The 60th-anniversary campaign, arriving October 23, 2026, changes that.

The centerpiece is a five-CD collection titled Sinatra at the Sands: 60th Anniversary, presenting five complete performances from the original residency for the first time. The shows come from January 26 through February 1, 1966.

The performances are:

• January 26, 1966 — Second Show
• January 27, 1966 — First Show
• January 28, 1966 — First Show
• January 29, 1966 — First Show
• February 1, 1966 — Second Show

The new collection has been mixed and mastered from the original four-track remote tapes by longtime Sinatra engineer Larry Walsh. It also includes a 48-page booklet with new liner notes, detailed track information, rare photographs and eyewitness recollections.

Two additional performances, “Angel Eyes” and “Where or When,” from the second show on January 28, are included as bonus tracks.

The January 28 second show had previously been issued in full on the 2018 Standing Room Only collection, making the two performances a natural addition here without duplicating an entire concert.

For collectors, the significance is considerable. Rather than hearing only the carefully edited representation that appeared on the original album, listeners can now experience five different shows and hear the subtle changes that occurred from night to night.

Listening across the performances reveals an artist working within a familiar framework while allowing room for spontaneity.

“Come Fly with Me” remains the ideal opening statement. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” provides the swing. “The September of My Years” brings introspection. “One for My Baby” turns the room intimate. “It Was a Very Good Year” becomes a meditation on aging and memory.

Then Sinatra could suddenly change the temperature.

“Luck Be a Lady” brings swagger. “Get Me to the Church on Time” brings comedy. “My Kind of Town” sends the audience home with an anthem tailor-made for the city in which the performance took place.

The variations in the monologues are particularly revealing. “The Tea Break” and “A Few Last Words” are not merely connective tissue. They are part of the Sinatra experience — the personality between the songs, the timing, the jokes and the sense that the audience was witnessing something happening in real time.

That spontaneity is one reason the Sands performances remain so compelling.

The timing of the residency is equally fascinating.

Sinatra was 50 years old, an age at which many performers might have been looking back. Instead, 1966 would become another landmark year.

In July, “Strangers in the Night” would reach No. 1, becoming Sinatra’s first chart-topping single for Reprise. The following year, he would return to the top of the charts with his daughter Nancy on “Somethin’ Stupid.”

In that context, the Sands engagement sits at the center of a remarkable period. Sinatra was simultaneously a veteran entertainer and a contemporary hitmaker. He had survived changing musical fashions and reinvented himself through Reprise, yet he remained completely at home in the traditional nightclub environment.

The Sands was where those worlds came together.

Alongside the five-CD box, Capitol/UMe and Frank Sinatra Enterprises are also issuing a newly remixed 2LP 180-gram Vinylphyle edition of the original Sinatra at the Sands. It features new mixes by Larry Walsh and mastering by Joe Nino-Hernes at Sterling Sound.

The package recreates the original gatefold presentation, including Stan Cornyn’s Grammy-winning liner notes, while adding new notes from Charles Pignone and previously unpublished photographs from the residency.

Digital editions will also feature Dolby Atmos mixes, giving modern listeners another way to experience the performances.

The 2LP sequence retains the familiar character of the classic album while presenting the material in a new mix.

2LP Vinylphyle Edition — Track Listing

Side A

1. “Come Fly with Me” — 3:45
2. “I’ve Got a Crush on You” — 2:42
3. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” — 3:43
4. “The Shadow of Your Smile” — 2:31
5. “Street of Dreams” — 2:16
6. “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” — 4:40

Side B

1. “Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)” — 2:50
2. “One O’Clock Jump” — 0:53
3. “The Tea Break” (Monologue) — 11:48
4. “You Make Me Feel So Young” — 3:21

Side C

1. “All of Me” — 2:56
2. “The September of My Years” — 2:57
3. “Get Me to the Church on Time” — 2:21
4. “It Was a Very Good Year” — 4:01
5. “Don’t Worry ’Bout Me” — 3:18
6. “Makin’ Whoopee!” (Instrumental) — 4:24

Side D

1. “Where or When” — 2:46
2. “Angel Eyes” — 3:26
3. “My Kind of Town” — 3:04
4. “A Few Last Words” (Monologue) — 2:30
5. “My Kind of Town” (Reprise) — 1:00

Sinatra at the Sands: 60th Anniversary — 5CD Track Listing

Disc 1 — January 26, 1966, Second Show

1. “Come Fly with Me” — 3:39
2. “I’ve Got a Crush on You” — 2:56
3. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” — 3:33
4. “The September of My Years” — 3:11
5. “Street of Dreams” — 2:20
6. “One for My Baby” — 4:41
7. “Fly Me to the Moon” — 2:37
8. “One O’Clock Jump” (Basie Instrumental) — 0:53
9. “The Tea Break” (Monologue) — 15:37
10. “You Make Me Feel So Young” — 3:02
11. “The Shadow of Your Smile” — 2:43
12. “Luck Be a Lady” — 4:33
13. “It Was a Very Good Year” — 4:03
14. “Don’t Worry ’Bout Me” — 3:08
15. “My Kind of Town” — 3:33
16. “A Few Last Words” (Monologue) — 2:04
17. “My Kind of Town” (Reprise) — 1:28

Disc 2 — January 27, 1966, First Show

1. “Come Fly with Me” — 3:42
2. “I’ve Got a Crush on You” — 3:05
3. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” — 3:34
4. “The September of My Years” — 2:52
5. “Street of Dreams” — 2:12
6. “Fly Me to the Moon” — 2:37
7. “One O’Clock Jump” (Basie Instrumental) — 0:57
8. “The Tea Break” (Monologue) — 4:59
9. “You Make Me Feel So Young” — 2:59
10. “The Shadow of Your Smile” — 2:44
11. “Luck Be a Lady” — 4:33
12. “It Was a Very Good Year” — 7:11
13. “Don’t Worry ’Bout Me” — 3:02
14. “My Kind of Town” — 3:38
15. “A Few Last Words” (Monologue) — 6:32
16. “My Kind of Town” (Reprise) — 1:13

Disc 3 — January 28, 1966, First Show

1. “Come Fly with Me” — 3:51
2. “I’ve Got a Crush on You” — 4:24
3. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” — 3:42
4. “The September of My Years” — 3:07
5. “Street of Dreams” — 2:21
6. “Fly Me to the Moon” — 2:54
7. “One O’Clock Jump” (Basie Instrumental) — 0:56
8. “The Tea Break” (Monologue) — 11:05
9. “You Make Me Feel So Young” — 3:07
10. “The Shadow of Your Smile” — 2:48
11. “Get Me to the Church on Time” — 2:12
12. “It Was a Very Good Year” — 5:26
13. “My Kind of Town” — 3:37
14. “A Few Last Words” (Monologue) — 5:39
15. “My Kind of Town” (Reprise) — 1:31

Bonus Tracks — January 28, 1966, Second Show

16. “Angel Eyes” — 4:10
17. “Where or When” — 2:39

Disc 4 — January 29, 1966, First Show

1. “Come Fly with Me” — 3:45
2. “I’ve Got a Crush on You” — 3:34
3. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” — 3:24
4. “The September of My Years” — 3:06
5. “Street of Dreams” — 2:23
6. “Fly Me to the Moon” — 2:41
7. “One O’Clock Jump” (Basie Instrumental) — 0:56
8. “The Tea Break” (Monologue) — 14:56
9. “You Make Me Feel So Young” — 3:08
10. “The Shadow of Your Smile” — 2:38
11. “Get Me to the Church on Time” — 2:26
12. “It Was a Very Good Year” — 4:04
13. “My Kind of Town” — 3:54
14. “A Few Last Words” (Monologue) — 4:58
15. “My Kind of Town” (Reprise) — 1:13

Disc 5 — February 1, 1966, Second Show

1. “Come Fly with Me” — 3:38
2. “I’ve Got a Crush on You” — 2:55
3. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” — 3:26
4. “The September of My Years” — 2:57
5. “Street of Dreams” — 2:22
6. “One for My Baby” — 4:53
7. “Fly Me to the Moon” — 2:37
8. “One O’Clock Jump” (Basie Instrumental) — 0:51
9. “The Tea Break” (Monologue) — 5:44
10. “You Make Me Feel So Young” — 3:07
11. “The Shadow of Your Smile” — 2:41
12. “Luck Be a Lady” — 4:47
13. “It Was a Very Good Year” — 3:56
14. “Don’t Worry ’Bout Me” — 3:11
15. “My Kind of Town” — 3:25
16. “A Few Last Words” (Monologue) — 6:26
17. “My Kind of Town” (Reprise) — 1:34

Six decades later, that opening joke still tells the story.

Sinatra walked onto the Sands stage and immediately made the room his. Basie and his orchestra supplied the swing, Quincy Jones supplied the architecture, and Sinatra supplied the personality that held everything together.

The original Sinatra at the Sands captured only a portion of what happened during those extraordinary nights. The 60th-anniversary collection now allows listeners to go deeper — to hear five complete performances, to hear Sinatra vary his delivery, stretch his monologues and reshape familiar songs from one night to the next.

It is more than an anniversary reissue.

It is a return visit to one of the most celebrated rooms in Las Vegas history, at a moment when one of America's greatest entertainers was completely, unmistakably, at home.

The Chairman had the room.

And 60 years later, he still does.

Lee Ritenour Brings Six Decades of Musical Adventure to Live At Ronnie Scott’s

Few guitarists have spent as much of their careers refusing to stand still as Lee Ritenour. Across nearly six decades, the Los Angeles-born guitarist has moved effortlessly between jazz, fusion, pop, Brazilian music, funk and rock, building a body of work defined less by a single sound than by an enduring curiosity about where the guitar can go next.

Now, at 74, Ritenour is taking that restless spirit to one of jazz’s most storied rooms with Live At Ronnie Scott’s, a new double album arriving October 23, 2026, on The Player’s Club.

Recorded at London’s legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, the album captures a musician whose career has always been shaped by the energy of live performance. For Ritenour, the choice of venue feels almost inevitable.

“Every type of music has been played at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club since 1959,” he says. “That's exactly what I love to do too. So Live At Ronnie Scott's is a match made in heaven.”

The album’s 12 tracks draw from different corners of Ritenour’s extensive repertoire, moving between Brazilian-influenced material, jazz fusion, sophisticated groove and some of the guitarist’s best-known compositions. It is a program that reflects the musical range he has cultivated throughout his career — and the freedom he has always given himself to move from one style to another.

That freedom has been one of the defining characteristics of Ritenour’s career.

He began playing guitar as a child in Los Angeles and was already working professionally as a studio musician while still in his teens. At 16, he landed his first recording session with The Mamas & the Papas, setting him on a path that would eventually make him one of the busiest and most versatile session guitarists in the world.

By the 1970s, Ritenour was working with an extraordinary cross-section of artists. His session credits would eventually encompass names including Frank Sinatra, Pink Floyd, B.B. King, Tony Bennett and Quincy Jones, while his jazz work brought him into contact with musicians such as Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie and Stanley Turrentine. Estimates have placed his studio appearances at thousands of recordings.

Yet Ritenour was never content to remain simply a first-call session player.

In 1976, he launched his solo career with First Course, beginning a discography that would eventually encompass more than 40 albums. His early records helped establish him as one of the leading guitar voices in the emerging jazz-fusion movement, while releases such as Rit demonstrated his ability to incorporate the melodic sensibility and production values of contemporary pop without sacrificing his jazz vocabulary.

His fascination with Brazilian music became another crucial strand of his musical identity. Ritenour toured with Sergio Mendes in the early 1970s and worked with artists including Flora Purim, Gato Barbieri and Paulinho Da Costa. That Brazilian influence would remain a constant throughout his career, and it is reflected repeatedly in the material featured on Live At Ronnie Scott’s.

His 1978 album The Captain’s Journey and later releases such as Rio further developed his fusion of jazz, Brazilian rhythms and sophisticated contemporary songwriting. His collaboration with pianist and composer Dave Grusin became particularly important, producing the Grammy-winning Harlequin in 1985.

Ritenour’s Grammy history is extensive, with one win and 16 nominations across jazz, pop and classical categories.

The guitarist’s collaborative instincts also led to one of contemporary jazz’s most successful supergroups. In the early 1990s, Ritenour joined pianist Bob James, bassist Nathan East and drummer Harvey Mason to form Fourplay. The group’s self-titled 1991 debut became a major commercial success, and Ritenour remained for its first three albums before leaving the group in 1997, with Larry Carlton subsequently taking his place.

His own discography continued to evolve throughout the decades. Wes Bound paid tribute to Wes Montgomery, while Larry & Lee reunited him with fellow guitarist Larry Carlton. 6 String Theory brought together an astonishing collection of guitarists and musicians, including B.B. King, George Benson, Keb’ Mo’ and Pat Martino, while Rhythm Sessions featured guests including Dave Grusin, Stanley Clarke, George Duke and Chick Corea.

In 2020, Ritenour took perhaps his most stripped-down musical turn with Dreamcatcher, his first album devoted entirely to solo guitar. It was another reminder that, despite having spent much of his career in ensembles, his fascination with the instrument itself had never diminished.

His longstanding musical partnership with Grusin has continued into the present day. In 2024, the pair released Brasil, returning to the Brazilian music that had played such an important role in their earlier work and recording with an ensemble of Brazilian musicians in São Paulo. The album extended a creative conversation that had begun decades earlier.

That history makes Live At Ronnie Scott’s feel less like a retrospective than another stop on a journey that has never really had a final destination.

The repertoire tells the story.

“Cravo e Canela” immediately establishes the Brazilian influence that has run through so much of Ritenour’s work. “L.A. By Bike” and “For the Palms” move the set into more contemporary territory before the first disc reaches two of his signature pieces, “Captain Fingers” and “A Little Bumpin’.” “Meu Samba Torto” brings the Brazilian thread back into focus to close the first half.

The second disc continues the stylistic journey with “Lay It Down,” followed by the familiar “Is It You?” — Ritenour’s 1981 collaboration with vocalist Eric Tagg that became a pop hit and enduring smooth-jazz favorite.

“Waltz for Carmen” offers a more lyrical turn before the set returns to Brazilian-inspired material with “Stone Flower.” “Pearl” follows, and the performance closes with “Rio Funk,” one of the guitarist’s enduring groove-oriented compositions.

The sequencing makes sense for an artist whose career has always existed between categories. Ritenour does not approach jazz, fusion, Brazilian music or pop as separate identities. They are simply different parts of the same musical vocabulary.

That may be why his playing has remained so recognizable across such a wide range of settings.

His guitar tone can be lyrical and delicate one moment, rhythmically aggressive the next, but there is always an underlying emphasis on melody and groove. Even at his most technically sophisticated, Ritenour has rarely seemed interested in virtuosity for its own sake.

The music has to move.

That principle is particularly important in a live setting, where the guitarist has to respond to the room, the musicians around him and the audience. Ronnie Scott’s is therefore an especially appropriate location for this recording. Since opening in 1959, the club has become one of London’s defining jazz institutions, welcoming generations of international musicians and developing its own reputation as a place where jazz can stretch beyond conventional boundaries.

For Ritenour, that spirit mirrors the way he has approached his own career.

He has never been particularly interested in choosing between jazz and other forms of music. Instead, he has spent decades demonstrating how porous those boundaries can be. His discography moves naturally from fusion to pop, from Brazilian music to funk, from sophisticated instrumental music to collaborations with major vocalists and composers.

The result is a career that is difficult to summarize with a single label.

Jazz guitarist works. Fusion pioneer works. Session ace works. Brazilian music devotee works. Pop collaborator works. Grammy-winning musician works.

But none of those descriptions tells the whole story.

What connects them is the willingness to follow the music wherever it leads.

Live At Ronnie Scott’s arrives as a two-LP gatefold set and CD on The Player’s Club, offering a live portrait of Ritenour at a stage in his career when he has accumulated almost every accolade available but remains just as interested in the next performance.

The complete tracklist is:

Disc One — Side One

1. Cravo e Canela
2. L.A. By Bike
3. For the Palms

Disc One — Side Two

4. Captain Fingers
5. A Little Bumpin’
6. Meu Samba Torto

Disc Two — Side One

7. Lay It Down
8. Is It You?
9. Waltz for Carmen

Disc Two — Side Two

10. Stone Flower
11. Pearl
12. Rio Funk

Live At Ronnie Scott’s will be released October 23, 2026, on The Player’s Club, in 2LP and CD editions.

After nearly 60 years of recording, touring, collaborating and constantly reinventing himself, Lee Ritenour could easily be forgiven for looking back.

Instead, he continues to look forward.

And on a London stage built around the idea that jazz should remain open to possibility, that restless spirit sounds right at home.