The Paul Carlon Quintet | Blues For Vita

Saxophonist and composer PAUL CARLON has been lucky to be surrounded by talented, artistic women throughout his life. His mother was a visual artist who set up large canvases in a workspace she carved out for herself in their home. Her art and her work ethic were huge influences on the young musician. But his late sister, also a visual artist, and his wife, formerly an actor, also embody the artistic spirit that nurtures Carlon’s creativity. 

Carlon is releasing BLUES FOR VITA, his sixth album as a leader. His previous albums have all been Latin-tinged and feature different band configurations. His albums include Tresillo (2017), La Rumba Is a Lovesome Thing: Tribute to Billy Strayhorn (2013), Roots Propaganda (2008), Other Tongues (2006), and Looking Up (1998). The Latin Jazz Network said, “A big man with an expressive face, Mr. Carlon espouses a tone much larger than himself, which is by turn gritty, rapturously lyrical, sparkling and luscious.” 

BLUES FOR VITA features the Paul Carlon Quintet, comprising top New York players who have performed with a Who’s-Who of jazz and Latin jazz stars. The band includes EDDIE ALLEN (trumpet), HARVIE S (bass), HELIO ALVES (piano), and WILLIE MARTINEZ (drums). 

Carlon comes from a musical as well as an artistic family. Two of his older siblings were string players, but Carlon was drawn to the saxophone and decided to follow his own path. Although he earned a degree in English Literature from Cornell University, he chose music as his career and moved to New York City after graduating. He quickly became part of the thriving 90's jazz scene, honing his craft at all-night cutting sessions at Small's Jazz Club. 

Carlon’s playing and composing has been influenced by the greats who came before him. In particular, he cites Woody Shaw, who was known for revolutionizing the technical and harmonic language of modern jazz trumpet playing, and Gene Ammons, a bebop saxophonist who integrated blues and R&B in his music. But Carlon has also been very influenced by Afro-Caribbean music and has performed in various Latin jazz bands.  

Not long after arriving in New York, Carlon became a member of bassist Phil Bowler's band, Pocket Jungle. The band was popular in the 1990’s but stopped performing in 2002. After a 12-year hiatus, the band was reconstituted and recorded a well-received album, which included one of Carlon’s compositions. In the late 90s, Carlon began working with two Afro-Cuban jazz groups, Grupo los Santos and Cuban trombonist Juan Pablo Torres' quintet. He also performs and records with many other groups, including Bronx Conexion (a Latin jazz big band), The McCarron Brothers (a quartet that plays a blend of funk, fusion, and free jazz), Alex Ayala's Afro Puerto Rican Big Band, Schapiro 17 Jazz Orchestra, The Tony Romano Quartet, Earotica (led by bassist John Lang), Goussy Célestin's Ayiti Brass, and Nation Beat, for which he serves as the musical director. 

BLUES FOR VITA comprises five originals by Carlon, two standards, and one off-the-beaten-track composition. Blues, R&B, bebop, and Latin jazz are clearly present in Carlon’s hip sax work. The album opens with “Dee Dot,” the most straight-ahead composition on the album with echoes of Art Blakey’s bands. Carlon composed the tune quickly at a rehearsal and just as quickly came up with the name when he scatted the melody for the band. 

Other Carlon originals include “Colored Paper,” a tune with a driving Latin beat and an Eddie Harris vibe. He named the title track, “Blues for Vita,” for his wife, Lavita, whose image is beautifully rendered on the cover art. Composed with a blues form, the piano plays an ostinato that underpins Carlon’s and Allen’s solos. 

“Unmute” was influenced by Woody Shaw’s driving music. Carlon derived the name from the many Zoom sessions he participated in during the pandemic lockdown. “Zooming into the Void,” the closing track and the last Carlon original on the album, was also named after his pandemic Zoom sessions. The tune is a bossa nova with a darker, moodier vibe. 

The two standards on the album are “Never Will I Marry” and “It Never Entered My Mind.” Carlon’s approach to “Never Will I Marry” was inspired by the iconic Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley version, but the band takes it in new directions with propulsive solos by Carlon and Alves. “It Never Entered My Mind” is a Latin-tinged, slow cha-cha with a menacing feel. 

“Isabel the Liberator,” composed by Larry Willis, is rarely performed, and was notably recorded by Woody Shaw. It was also recorded by Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, one of Carlon’s favorites. Since no lead sheets existed, Carlon transcribed it by ear. 

BLUES FOR VITA is a hip, Latin jazz-inflected album by one of the busiest and most inventive saxophonists on the New York jazz scene. Carlon’s playing is solid and soulful, and many of his compositions are bound to become standards for the jazz cognoscenti. 

Wayne Shorter | Celebration Volume 1

Blue Note Records has announced an August 23 release of Celebration, Volume 1, the first in a series of archival releases that the legendary saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter curated before he passed away in 2023. This thrilling 2014 live recording captured Shorter’s acclaimed quartet with pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade at the Stockholm Jazz Festival in Sweden. The intrepid set includes some of the band’s favorite vehicles of exploration including “Zero Gravity,” “Smilin’ Through,” “Orbits,” “Lotus,” and “She Moves Through The Fair.” The album is introduced today with the single “Edge of the World (End Title),” a theme by composer Arthur B. Rubinstein from the 1983 film WarGames, which is accompanied by a live performance video.

“In the fall of 2022, Rob Griffin started sending a lot of unreleased music for Wayne to sort thru,” writes Carolina Shorter in the album’s liner notes. “He started listening around the clock. I’d be doing something around the house, talking on the phone, doing work and he’d yell ‘Carolina! You’ve got to come and hear this shit! Check out what these guys are doing!’ Wayne made detailed notes – some of them are reprinted on this album jacket.”

“When he heard the Stockholm concert, he said ‘this is the album!,’” she continues. “Then he started listening to more things and, over time, realized that it was going to have to be more than one record. He originally wanted to call the collection Unidentified Flying Objects – thinking of the notes everyone played as being UFOs! In January 2023, when he was hospitalized for the last time, he continued picking tracks and laying out the albums. His ‘Never Give Up’ spirit, which underlines his entire mission, was stronger than ever and he was excited to release more music. It was only in the last 10 days of his life that he realized he was not going to be around to see it to fruition. He started feeling the urgency of celebrating life and decided to change the name of the collection to Celebration. I said ‘Yes Wayne! Let’s celebrate!!! That’s what it should be called. A celebration!’”

Blue Note will also be celebrating Shorter’s legacy with several reissues of his classic albums including a Tone Poet Vinyl Edition of Odyssey of Iska (1970) out July 5, a Classic Vinyl Edition of JuJu (1964) out August 16, and a Blue Note Authorized Dealer exclusive blue vinyl reissue of Speak No Evil (1964) which will be available August 9 at participating independent record stores. Celebration, Volume 1 is available for pre-order now on limited edition Blue Note Store exclusive color vinyl, black vinyl, CD, and digital download.

Jon De Luca |The Brubeck Octet Projecr

Ever curious about the underexplored corners of jazz history, alto saxophonist Jon De Lucia breathes new life into one important such chapter with

The Brubeck Octet Project, dropping July 12 on his own Musæum Clausum Recordings imprint. The album documents De Lucia and his octet’s rediscovery and reconditioning of the arrangements played by the

Dave Brubeck Octet, the innovative 1946-1950 unit with which the iconic West Coast pianist began his career. It will be available in CD and digital formats as well as a limited edition 180g Translucent Red Vinyl release, in the style of the original Fantasy Brubeck records.

De Lucia’s octet predates The Brubeck Octet Project. He formed the band in 2016 for another project at City College of New York (where he then taught), but it quickly became a weekly reading band, leaving the saxophonist constantly in search for new (old) repertoire. It was this quest that led him to the archives at Mills College (Brubeck’s alma mater), where he found many of the Brubeck Octet’s original handwritten charts in the papers of the band’s tenor saxophonist and arranger, Dave Van Kriedt. 

“They were a bit of a mess, full of mistakes and scribbles that made them hard to read,” recalls De Lucia in the album’s liner notes. “I always wanted to take the time to put them into notation software, fix the mistakes, rehearse a band, and record this music anew. Finally, thanks to support from CUNY and the Brubeck and Van Kriedt families, it has happened.” 

Jazz being jazz, however, De Lucia also sought ways to make his own mark on the work—and to allow his collaborators to do the same. He wrote new intros and backgrounds for the arrangements (by Brubeck, Van Kriedt, and baritonist/clarinetist Bill Smith), and, more importantly, expanded their solo spaces, giving his musicians room to have their say.

Listeners get to reap those rewards. From De Lucia’s own muscular alto workout on “I Hear a Rhapsody” to pianist Glenn Zaleski, tenor saxophonist Scott Robinson, and trumpeter Brandon Lee’s gleeful runs on “IPCA” to Robinson and trombonist Becca Patterson’s thoughtful, enigmatic submissions on “What Is This Thing Called Love,” the players offer irresistible interpretations and expressions on the historical arrangements. 

As such, the music both remains a product of its time—an experimental thrill ride of the early bebop era—and crackles with renewed vigor and spontaneity at the hands of De Lucia and his cohorts. “This is the first time in 74 years that this music has been played and recorded again,” the alto saxophonist writes. “I think the results turned out great!” Indeed they have.

Jon De Lucia was born November 26, 1980 in Quincy, Massachusetts—just outside Boston, a garden spot for musical studies (and jazz studies in particular). Studying with Berklee College of Music woodwind professor Dino Govoni since high school, De Lucia headed directly for the Boston conservatory after graduating—where he was quickly diverted from his ambition to write video-game music. 

Instead, he was inspired by the high caliber of classmates like Kendrick Scott and Walter Smith III to live up to their jazz chops. De Lucia added a performance major to his studies, and, in addition to jazz, also studied folkloric musics from around the world. His lens widened yet again after he graduated from Berklee in 2005 and moved to New York, where he played and studied with a variety of jazz masters and also began exploring the world of Baroque music. 

Thus his first recording was a postbop jazz sextet session, Face No Face (2006), but De Lucia’s longest-lived project is his Luce Trio, with guitarist Ryan Ferreira and bassist Chris Tordini, now Tatsuya Sakurai and Aidan O’Donnell, which improvises on the compositions of Bach, Handel, and Dowland as well as Baroque-influenced jazz composers like John Lewis and Jimmy Giuffre. 

It was in pursuit of the lattermost composer that De Lucia formed his Octet in 2016, a vessel for investigating Giuffre’s 1959 octet arrangements for saxophonist Lee Konitz. The Octet turned out to outlast the Giuffre project, and De Lucia’s desire to keep replenishing its repertoire led him to the Van Kriedt and Brubeck arrangements that form the basis of his Brubeck Octet Project.

The Jon De Lucia Octet will perform music from The Brubeck Octet Project at Birdland, 315 W. 44th Street, on Sunday 7/14, 5:30pm.