Brian Culbertson | "The Trilogy, Part 1: Red"

Hitmaker Brian Culbertson never imagined hanging with fans online would lead to something of a collaborative masterclass spawning an album trilogy, but that’s how “The Trilogy” was conceived. The first album in the series, an intimate, passion-themed set titled “The Trilogy, Part 1: Red,” dropped Friday from BCM Entertainment. Written, produced and performed by Culbertson, the multi-instrumentalist credits members of his Hang Club with helping him craft the tracks, title the songs, and even assist with the cover artwork via weekly members-only YouTube Live sessions.

As viewership for Culbertson’s Friday night Facebook Live show, The Hang, took off in the spring of 2020 while he was unable to tour, he hatched the idea of creating The Hang Club, providing exclusive perks and behind-the-scenes opportunities for tier two members and above, including access to smaller Monday and Wednesday night live streams via YouTube unlisted. The Monday night sessions evolved into somewhat of a masterclass at which “Professor BC,” as Hang Club members dubbed him, wrote songs with immediate input from the Hang Club.

“What was cool about it was I truly got instant fan feedback of what they were digging and what they may not like. I got to bring them along, educating the fanbase on what an early demo sounds like, which is nothing like a finished record. I had to educate everyone’s ears to understand where it starts - the beginning, middle and end - after it’s mastered and how it really transforms over time and gets better and better and better slowly. That’s been a fun part both from my side and for them,” said Culbertson about Hang Club members.

As he wrote more material, Culbertson began to notice that the songs emotionally fell into three distinctive categories: passion, melancholy and hope. Then he envisioned assigning a color scheme to each theme: red, blue and white.

“When I first started the process, I did not have ‘The Trilogy’ in mind. I was just writing new songs at that point. I started writing a bunch and it slowly came into focus that they all sounded sonically similar in terms of the production style. However, the feeling that you would get from the songs became clear in three distinct groups. For instance, on ‘Red,’ all those songs were clearly about passion and love. Some of the songs were melancholy, sad – really made you think…introspection. Then, the third section of songs were more fun, happy and hopeful. ‘The Trilogy’ mirrors a relationship arc. ‘Red’ is the steamy beginning, ‘Blue’ is the rocky middle, and ‘White’ is the ‘and they lived happily ever after.’”

“The Trilogy, Part 1: Red” is an alluring, atmospheric listen. The rhythmic grooves churn seductively as deep bass and captivating melodies bathe and caress body, mind and soul. Romantic and desirous, steamy and intense, sultry and sexy.

Keeping with the cozy nature of the material, Culbertson plays most of the instruments himself, including piano, keyboards, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Hammond B3 organ, bass, drums and percussion, trombone, and even some guitar. The record includes contributions by guitarists Isaiah Sharkey, Randy Bowland and Darnell “Showcase” Taylor; bassists Alex Al and Rishon Odell, and vocalist Micaela Haley. Culbertson also surprises with dreamy, layered vocalese on “Infatuation” and a full lead wordless vocal on “Lost in You.” In fact, the latter made it onto the album at the urging of the Hang Club.    

“I was messing around trying to write a cool-sounding track, thinking maybe one day someone would put lyrics to it. I had it in the vault for a while. One night, I played it for the Hang Club, and they freaked out. They loved it and said it should be on the record,” said Culbertson, who revealed that his vocalese will appear on all three parts of “The Trilogy.”

The first track from “The Trilogy, Part 1: Red” issued as a single is “Feel the Love,” a sensual instrumental R&B groove that opens the album and sets the mood for what’s to come.

An element that stands out while listening to the lavish sonicscapes that Culbertson constructed for his 23rd album is the lofty production qualities. The tracks are textured tapestries, intricate and lush yet still full of space. As a producer, Culbertson is in constant pursuit of new sounds, growing, evolving and elevating the listening experience of his albums with each successive recording.

“I’m trying to make music that is fresh sounding and hopefully has sounds that you have never heard before. But of course, it’s mixed with sounds you are familiar with, like my piano, Rhodes and organ…whatever it may be. But all the extra stuff around it, that’s where you can get really creative and look for unique and exciting sounds that take you somewhere new or somewhere else,” said Culbertson who has tallied close to forty Billboard No. 1 singles as an artist, songwriter and/or producer.

Culbertson is about seventy percent through the second and third parts of “The Trilogy” and will continue to rely on the Hang Club’s input to help complete the sets. The “Blue” album is slated to release on January 14, 2022, and the “White” album will drop on May 6, 2022. That will make it three albums – 30 songs – in an eight-month span. A challenge inherent with being so prolific is how to present all the music live.

“I will have released four new albums since I last toured (“Winter Stories,” “XX,” “Music From The Hang” and now “The Trilogy, Part 1: Red”), five if you count the ‘Soundscapes’ EP (a nature-themed foray into film music released last March). Therefore, I have a lot of new music to play on tour. The show is going to be full of songs that you know and love, plus some songs from the newer albums. Basically, a mix of the classics and a handful of the new stuff,” said Culbertson who just finished his third annual Chicago Jazz Getaway festival and will be out on a three-week concert trek in November throughout the South, Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest.

Avi Wisnia | "Catching Leaves"

Philadelphia songwriter Avi Wisnia is pleased to announce ‘Catching Leaves,’ his first full-length album in more than a decade, out November 5th. Produced by acclaimed bassist/conductor Ken Pendergast (Melody Gardot, Macy Gray), the collection follows the passing of Wisnia’s brother, who first introduced him to the joy of music, and grandfather, a singer and Holocaust survivor who helped him rediscover its communal power. Wisnia writes with a gentle touch, reflecting on love and loss as he crafts a tender ode to living in the moment, to surrendering to forces beyond our control and finding peace in growth, change, and acceptance. The arrangements are similarly honest and intimate, mixing hints of jazz, roots, and the Great American Songbook together into an organic swirl that’s at once beautiful and bittersweet.

“In order to make this album, I had to learn to lean into my grief and sadness and all the feelings of loss and uncertainty I was dealing with,” Wisnia explains. “I had to examine the moments that felt so overwhelming and learn to see the beauty in them.” 

Each track on ‘Catching Leaves’ is its own little sonic universe, singular in its delivery yet inextricably tied to the greater whole by Wisnia’s rich, compelling vocals, which feel equally at home floating atop lush strings and horns as they do anchoring spare, meditative moments of piano and guitar. The result is a moving, intimate album shaped by the power of human connection and community, a riveting collection that calls to mind everyone from Rufus Wainwright and Teddy Thompson to Ron Sexsmith and Gabriel Kahane as it navigates darkness and doubt, faith and family, pain and resilience. 

As the son of a rabbi and grandson of a cantor, Wisnia learned to be comfortable onstage in front of crowds at a young age. Born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, he gravitated towards music from the start, composing melodies on the piano as soon as he was tall enough to reach the keys. At five, he enrolled in classical lessons, and by the time he finished high school, he’d landed a spot at NYU to study theory and composition. Spurred on by the sea of songwriters and storytellers that surrounded him in New York, Wisnia began taking his songs to open mic nights and booking club shows, honing his chops as a writer and performer at popular venues like Rockwood Music Hall, The Living Room, and The Bitter End. After graduation, he returned to New Jersey to record his debut EP, ‘Avi Wisnia Presents,’ in the sanctuary of his father’s synagogue. Sold-out release shows in New York and Philadelphia followed, as did Wisnia’s critically acclaimed full-length debut, ‘Something New,’ which landed him tour dates around the country and abroad, including performances alongside artists as diverse as Ani DiFranco, The Roots, and Arturo Sandoval.

Just as things were beginning to take off, though, tragedy struck, and Wisnia was forced to say goodbye to his brother, who was not only a frequent collaborator, but his best friend. The loss hit hard, and for a time, Wisnia walked away from writing and performing altogether, uncertain how he’d return until 2015, when he received an invitation to sing with his grandfather. 

“My grandfather was a singer and a holocaust survivor,” Wisnia explains, “and while he wasn’t one to really talk about his emotions, he always spoke through his music, using it to help tell his story. Performing with him helped me find my purpose again. He taught me that we can carry a lot of pain and grief with us and still see the joy and the beauty in life; that it’s okay if we are unable to move on from loss, because we can always find ways to move forward with it.” 

Inspired by his grandfather’s example, Wisnia reconnected with the power of music to bring people together. He relocated to Philadelphia, where he immersed himself in city life, spending long, introspective afternoons in the South Philly neighborhood where his brother used to live, sitting and writing in Palumbo Park (the album’s cover art was shot there in front of a large-scale mural titled “Autumn Revisited”). 

When it came time to record his new album, Wisnia convened a band of Philadelphia talent at Morning Star Studios just outside the city in East Norriton, PA, where they laid down the core elements of the album with a series of tender, precise performances. Sticking primarily to acoustic instruments, he aimed to keep things grounded and timeless, drawing on the likes of Chet Baker and Vince Guaraldi as sonic touchstones before returning to the city for finishing touches with Pendergast, whose inventive approach incorporated everything from Wisnia’s childhood Fisher Price xylophone to the clacking keys of a vintage typewriter. 

Album opener “Catching Leaves” sets the scene, with shuffling drums and jazz-tinged piano giving way to a gorgeous meditation on the power of being present, on sitting still and observing the mysterious splendor of the world around you. Like much of the collection, the track draws heavily on naturalist imagery, examining the turning of the seasons and the weather as metaphors for the passage of time and the kind of change that inevitably ushers us along. 

“The weather and the seasons, particularly the autumn, helped color all of the songs I was coming up with at the time,” he explains. “In nature, there are so many things that happen that are entirely beyond our control, and I think it’s good to be reminded of your place in the world.” 

It is particularly poignant given the recent loss of his grandfather, but if there’s one thing Catching Leaves has taught Wisnia, it’s that music binds us, both in life and in death. It keeps our memories alive, it keeps our hearts full, and it keeps us connected to one another. Even when we feel like we can’t move on, the music helps us find a way to move forward.

The Gold Souls | "94 Chevy"

The Gold Souls are bringing the driving grooves of funk, the rich textures of soul, and the compelling storytelling of the blues to the Northern California scene and beyond. Drawing from a wide range of influences and experiences, they deliver captivating lyrics and fresh arrangements over a vintage sound.

Led by the dynamic Juniper Waller, the group is made up of young talent hailing from the Bay and Sacramento areas. With Darius Upshaw on guitar, Alex Severson on the keys, Billy D. Thompson on the drums, and Avery Jeffry on bass, each member has a hand in writing and song composition, making The Gold Souls a truly collaborative effort.

“‘94 Chevy is a fun and upbeat funk about an imaginary police chase in our actual tour van,” says co-writer and drummer Billy D. Thompson. “It’s a musically adventurous song that moves through different sonic scapes to emphasize the twists and turns of the story.”

“Our van took us up and down the West Coast and all the way out to New Orleans and back, so we felt it deserved its own single,” adds lead singer and co-writer Juniper Waller.

The Gold Souls burst on the Sacramento music scene in early 2017 and are swiftly becoming one of the most promising new talents in the area.

They released their self-titled five song EP in May of 2017, and toured down the California coast soon after in support of the fresh blues, soul-funk EP. Their next single, “Nobody,” was released in late 2017 and was featured on Apple Music Blues’ Hot Tracks list. They released their full-length album “Good to Feel” in June of 2018, an album that stuck to their core oath to never sacrifice the groove.

Their next single, “True Blue” was produced/engineered by multi-Grammy winner Timothy Bloom (Smokey Robinson) and was released in February of 2019. That April, the band went on tour through southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and New Orleans.

“Strongman” was released in the Summer of 2019 as a single that promotes a story of female-empowerment through rich soul textures and a vintage-inspired sound. The release was accompanied by a visually stunning lyric video in October of that year. After their performance at the Joshua Tree Music Festival, The Gold Souls toured up to the Pacific Northwest and wrapped 2019 with a NYE show with their fans at The Palm Playhouse.

2020 hardly slowed the Souls down, as they spent the year working on their forthcoming second album and live-streaming many concerts to their fans as they sheltered in place. They released their latest single, “Got It” in May of 2020 which promoted a message of community empowerment and unity. The single was accompanied by a collaborative music video with animation from artists all around the world. 

2021 and beyond look promising for the band, as they get back to their busy schedule of traveling around Northern California and rocking stages for the live music-starved masses. 

Moving forward, The Gold Souls will be releasing their New full Album. On Oct. 29th and they will be hitting the road with a Tour set for the first two weeks of November.  

Eric Krasno | "Always"

On “Silence,” the new single from songwriter-producer Eric Krasno’s forthcoming solo album ‘Always’ (2/4, Mascot Label Group), Krasno explores the emotional havoc that a lack of communication can wreak on the human psyche. “Silence is a song I wrote a number of years ago about the torture of not knowing,” he explains. “I sing about how the silent treatment can make your mind spiral into the darkest place where you assume the worst situation is inevitable. This was the first track I worked on with Otis McDonald for the album. The original track I sent him had just acoustic guitar, piano, and vocals. As we built the track, I think it set the tone and feel for the album as a whole.”

On his fourth full-length solo album, ‘Always,’ Krasno consecrates, commends, and celebrates the permanence of family. Across ten tracks with inimitable instrumentation, eloquent songcraft, and raw honesty, the Soulive and Lettuce co-founder, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and two-time GRAMMY® Award-winning artist defines himself as not only an artist, but also as a husband, father, and man. “Before 2020, I was having a good time, but I wasn’t grounded at all,” he explains. “I was going from gig to gig. I was always running around without a purpose. During the last year, I found my people in terms of my wife and son. I’ve created a family who will always be there for me. That’s what the album is about.”

Something of a musical journeyman, Krasno’s extensive catalog comprises three solo albums, four Lettuce albums, twelve Soulive albums, and production and/or songwriting for Norah Jones, Robert Randolph, Pretty Lights, Talib Kweli, 50 Cent, Aaron Neville, and Allen Stone. As a dynamic performer, he’s shared stages with Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, and The Roots. Out of seven nominations, he picked up two GRAMMY® Awards for his role as a songwriter and guitarist on Tedeschi Trucks Band’s ‘Revelator’ and guitarist on Derek Trucks Band’s ‘Already Free.’

But as the Global Pandemic changed the world’s plans, he found himself thinking a lot and writing just as much. At the suggestion of old Lettuce bandmate Adam Deitch, he connected with musician and producer Otis McDonald and collaborated on a version of Bob Dylan’s “The Man In Me,” a song that had taken on a deeper significance for Eric in recent years. “My wife and I got married, bought a house, and had a baby,” he recalls. “I had heard the song many times before, but it had never quite hit me the way it was hitting me. I recorded it with just acoustic guitar and vocals, and I loved what Otis did to it. He sent it back to me, and I thought, ‘This is exactly how I want to make my next record’.”

Recording first virtually and then at the Bay Area’s legendary Hyde Street Studios, famous for 2Pac, Grateful Dead, and Digital Underground, Krasno and McDonald tapped into a shared spirit as co-producers, ultimately forming Eric Krasno & The Assembly with Otis on bass, Wil Blades on keys and organ, Curtis Kelly on drums, and James VIII on guitar and vocals. The release of “Silence” follows “So Cold,” an icy beat bolts down the groove as Eric’s soulful intonation cools the tense riff. In the wake of a hummable hook, a bluesy guitar solo takes hold as each bend wails.

“It’s about a relationship,” he explains. “This girl takes out her anger on other people, and the guy is trying to get to the bottom of what’s wrong and why she’s so cold. You’re trying to leave dark things behind and move into a more positive place. It has a hopeful tone because I’ve gotten past it.”

In the end, Eric welcomes everyone to be a part of his family on ‘Always.’

“If you take away a message of love and the Always concept, that’s great,” he leaves off. “Most of all, I want to put you in a happy place. In the past, I personally just felt like I was a guitarist, songwriter, and a producer. Now, I feel like a fully formed artist.”

Ray Obiedo | "Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2"

Ray Obiedo: Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2 on Rhythmus Records, is the 10th release by the Bay Area guitarist and composer. This project is a collection of Obiedo’s original Latin Jazz compositions, including one jazz standard by composer/arranger Gerald Wilson. Obiedo enlisted some of the music industry's top musicians and longtime cohorts for the project. Yellowjackets’ reed man Bob Mintzer, percussionist extraordinaire Sheila E., flutist Norbert Stachel, trumpeter Mike Olmos, percussionist Peter Michael Escovedo all make significant appearances. Santana members: keyboardist David K. Mathews, trombonist and arranger Jeff Cressman, and percussionist Karl Perazzo also contribute their expertise. 

This collection also features Tower of Power drummer David Garibaldi, Hungarian pianist Peter Horvath, steel pan player Phil Hawkins, vocalists Lilan Kane, Sandy Cressman & Jenny Meltzer and Dutch brothers Marc and Paul van Wageningen on bass and drums. Obiedo has 5 previous releases on the Windham Hill Jazz label. Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2 is the 4th release on his Oakland-based Rhythmus Records label. The music on Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2 is a highly-energized and rhythmically-hypnotic soundscape that reveals all the passion, flavor, color and style of the San Francisco Bay Area that nurtured and inspired Obiedo's latest musical venture.

Cathy Segal-Garcia | "Social Anthems"

Cathy Segal-Garcia is one of the most prolific recording and performing jazz artists on the scene today. An impresario, teacher, and jazz champion, she is a friend and linchpin for many singers and musicians on the Los Angeles jazz scene. Her newest album, Social Anthems, Volume 1, is her 14th CD as a leader. As an artist, Segal-Garcia is always looking for new avenues of expression. She forms each of her projects around a different theme, instrumentation or musical style, and Social Anthems is no different. This time, she moves the needle forward by looking back to the past by singing memorable songs of social import with sparkling new arrangements. These songs are originally outside of the jazz genre, but Segal-Garcia and her superb band reinterpret them with soulful, contemporary jazz arrangements. Segal-Garcia always surrounds herself with top musicians.

For this recording, she works with a few mainstays on the Southern California jazz scene, as well as New York vocalist Paul Jost, who is widely known as one of the best male jazz vocalists since Mark Murphy, and vocalist Mon David, who is known for his stirring, heartfelt vocals and imaginative, improvisatory vocal approach. Segal-Garcia chose each of the songs on Social Anthems because they resonated deeply with her. Her clear, cool voice and ability to convey lyrics with warmth and sensitivity, combined with her jazz chops, are always the main attraction of her albums. But when you add the innovative arrangements by Josh Nelson and Anthony Wilson and the superb contributions of Jost, David, and the entire band, Social Anthems is Segal-Garcia’s most compelling album yet.

Soul-Jazz Artist Ragan Whiteside Scores Her Seventh Consecutive Billboard Top 10 Career Record

Contemporary Soul-Jazz phenomenon Ragan Whiteside scores her seventh consecutive Billboard Top 10 career record. Her current single, “Off The Cuff,” lands at No. 9 on the Contemporary Jazz chart. Co-written by Whiteside with her husband, noted producer Dennis Johnson, and veteran producer and keyboardist Bob Baldwin, “Off The Cuff” will be featured on her February 2022 yet-to-be-titled album. The single is also No. 2 on Radiowave’s Groove Jazz Music chart. “Off The Cuff” is now among Whiteside’s winning streak of Billboard Top 10 records, including “JJ’s Strut,” “Reminiscing,” “Jam It,” “Early Arrival,” “See You At The Get Down,” and the Billboard No. 1 “Corey’s Bop.”  

The top-charting instrumentalist says, “This is a dream come true, especially during a time where there is an abundance of great music hitting the airwaves. I’m so grateful.”

While continuing to impact the music charts, Whiteside is featured on Ashford and Simpson’s classic anthem, “I’m Every Woman,” with an instrumental rendering featuring flutists Althea Rene and Kim Scott. She co-wrote with her production partner Dennis Johnson, Bob Baldwin’s new single, “B Positive.” This week, “B Positive” is No. 1 most added for two consecutive weeks and No. 1 most increased spins. Whiteside is also featured on Contemporary Jazz artist Jarez’s current single, “This Time Around,” which is gaining positive momentum on the charts, and is the fourth single from his current project, J Funk City. 

As the host of her four-hour Saturday morning radio show on Atlanta’s WCLK 91.9 FM, Ragan Whiteside’s show is growing exponentially with an increase of listeners and supporters. There are also upcoming plans to expand her platform on the show in 2022. On Saturday, October 1, Whiteside will be in her native New York City, where she will be a featured headliner at Yonkers Riverfest on the Waterfront Stage. 

To date, the composer, vocalist, and instrumentalist has released five albums, including the 2020 five-track EP Five Up Top, 2017’s Treblemaker, 2014’s Quantum Drive, 2012’s Evolve, and 2007’s Class Axe. She was also a finalist for the Smooth Jazz Network’s Artist of the Year for two consecutive years.

Chuck Owen and The Jazz Surge | "Within Us"

Composer and bandleader Chuck Owen celebrates the 25th anniversary of his Grammy-nominated big band The Jazz Surge on stunning new album Within Us, due out September 17, 2021 via Summit Records, reconvenes Owen’s vibrant 19-piece big band along with special guest vibraphonist Warren Wolf to commemorate the band’s silver anniversary and the resolute spirit that steered it through the past year.

With the 25th anniversary of his groundbreaking big band, The Jazz Surge, swiftly approaching, Florida-based composer and bandleader Chuck Owen saw an obvious theme for the ensemble’s upcoming seventh album. It’s an impressive landmark for any large ensemble, of course, but especially worth commemorating for one that’s been hailed as “riotous and joyous” (JazzTimes) and “rapturous” (DownBeat), earned seven Grammy nominations, and led its founder to such high-profile opportunities as composing and arranging for the WDR Big Band.

 As a global pandemic interfered and delay after delay pushed back the planned recording session, however, a new theme began to emerge. Once this tight-knit group of musicians emerged from quarantine and reunited in the studio in May, there were far more important ideas to express than the mere passage of time. The remarkable new album that emerged, Within Us, is a testament to the vibrant collective identity forged by the band over the past quarter-century.

“For almost everybody in the band, it was the first time they’d recorded with actual people in the same room since the beginning of the pandemic,” Owen recalls. “Just being together became such a joyous occasion. There was an amazing sense of community. Within Us really seemed to represent this sense of what we’d all been through and the inner strength, especially collectively, that drove us through it. We all felt that was worth celebrating once we were on the other side of it.”

Due out September 17, 2021 via Summit Records, Within Us features a stellar 19-piece ensemble, including several members who have been with the Surge since its self-titled 1996 debut, with vibraphone great Warren Wolf joins the band as special guest.

Within Us takes its title from an uncharacteristically hopeful quote by the typically darker-toned author and existentialist Albert Camus, from his essay “Return to Tipasa.”

“In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love. In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile. In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm. I realized, through it all, that . . .In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”

Owen paraphrased the quote, changing the “within me” to the more communal “us,” characteristic of his collaborative nature. The Jazz Surge itself was not originally planned to be a vehicle for his own work, but an extension of his teaching at the University South Florida, an institution from which he’ll retire this summer after 40 years. He’d written an article stressing the importance of jazz repertory in music education, so decided to put his words into action with the founding of the South Eastern Repertory Jazz Ensemble – or, SERJE. After an initial rehearsal using some of his own charts he realized how much fun it was to hear his music played by such a gifted band, and the SERJE ceased being an acronym and became the soundalike Surge.

Owen’s joy in hearing his compositions brought to life by the band remains evident 25 years later. Opener “Chelsea Shuffle” brims with that excitement, even given its somewhat tragic origins. Legendary pianist Chick Corea was originally slated to be the album’s special guest, so Owen arranged this Corea composition to feature him. The pianist’s untimely death leaves the tune as a fittingly exuberant send-off.

It was Corea’s longtime partnership with Gary Burton that turned Owen’s thoughts to the vibraphone, leading to Wolf being recruited as the date’s special guest. His agile playing graces both “Chelsea Shuffle” and Owen’s lush “The Better Claim,” revisiting a piece from the Surge’s 2013 suite River Runs. “Milestones,” of course, is a holdover from the album’s original title. Owen’s arrangement of the Miles Davis classic fuses it with “Surge,” the first composition he ever wrote expressly for the ensemble, bridging the band’s past and present in the span of one tune.

Other pieces look nostalgically back while gazing resolutely forward with a tentative optimism, befitting both the album’s status as an anniversary celebration as well as its tribute to the band’s strong resolution. “Trail of the Ancients” and “Apalachicola” both ruminate on Owen’s love of and concern for the environment, while “American Noir” is a cynically hopeful recap of recent political turmoil inspired by Chinatown soundtrack composer Jerry Goldsmith. “Sparks Fly” and the title track (subtitled “An Invincible Summer”) are both more direct tributes to Owen’s dedicated bandmates. 

“I'm incredibly grateful to be commemorating 25 years with this band,” Owen concludes. “It really changed the trajectory of my career and gave me a newfound focus for my writing. I now had specific people that I was writing for, and through them I discovered so many things. Ultimately it’s allowed me to take more artistic risks based on the fact that I have wonderful musicians that are willing to go on the ride with me.” 

Central Florida-based Chuck Owen has been a revered composer and bandleader as well as a committed, passionate and nationally respected jazz educator for over 40 years. Thoughtful, creative, evocative, and intensely personal, his compositions and arrangements are steeped in the jazz tradition but draw liberally and often playfully from a diverse array of additional influences that include contemporary classical, American folk/roots music, Latin, funk, hip-hop and even country music. Since founding it in 1995, Owen’s primary creative outlet has been the 19-piece Jazz Surge, and he has served as conductor, primary composer/arranger, and producer of all of its highly feted releases, which have garnered seven GRAMMY nominations. His compositional talents have also been recognized by a Guggenheim Fellowship. During its history the Surge has hosted such special guests as Chick Corea, Joe Lovano, Randy Brecker, Bob Brookmeyer, John Clayton, Dave Douglas and Gerald Wilson, among many others.

Masabumi Kikuchi | "Hanamichi"

The final studio recording from the late Japanese pianist Masabumi Kikuchi, Hanamichi is the culmination of a lifetime of musical exploration and discovery.

Six revelatory tracks by the late Japanese pianist Masabumi Kikuchi are featured on Hanamichi, the debut release by Red Hook Records, due out April 16, 2021, in digital, LP, and CD formats. Recorded over a two-day New York session on a magnificent Steinway, the music marks a divergence from the mostly free improvising Poo (Kikuchi’s nickname), who died at age 75 in 2015, practiced during his final years. Kikuchi’s radiant playing sparkles with melodic exploration and expression in renditions of lesser-known tunes and popular standards.

As Kevin Whitehead writes in these excerpts from the album’s liner notes:

“I don’t have any technique,” Kikuchi protested to the New York Times’ Ben Ratliff, a year and a half before recording Hanamichi. More accurate to say he’d developed his own. He played with fingers curved, hands moving crablike or poised banana-bunched. Sometimes his palms drooped below the keyboard, and sometimes he played with hands crossed or overlapping. You can hear the resultant sonic knots on “Improvisation” and the first “My Favorite Things”: churnings from which instant melodies suddenly arise.

For Hanamichi, producer Sun Chung nudged him toward playing tunes, in addition to his free improvisations. That proved to be a good idea. Poo didn’t bring music or a setlist, calling selections in the moment. One is a personal standard, a staple of  his sets since 1970, the ballad for his daughter “Little Abi.”

You can measure how radically Kikuchi transforms Mabel Wayne’s brisk Spanish waltz “Ramona” by the seven-second gap between the first and second notes of the melody once he finally gets around to it. Languid tempo lets him build, and the final melody statement in a new key is freighted with accumulated feeling. That tempo lets us hear Kikuchi’s command of pedaling and of overtones at the margins: the high thin sheen of ringing harmonics that persists through changing chords.

While some pianists who ride sustain pedal overplay, Kikuchi pares back, choosing notes with extra care for clarity. Humming piano harp is a shifting backdrop to present action, not a heavy curtain descending on it. Kikuchi’s “Summertime” announces the melody with playfully ambiguous barroom tremolos and distorts the graceful timing of Gershwin’s internal cadences. All those dynamics he minds are on display: piano rings in many ways, across the registers — another zone of dynamic variation. In the performance’s back half, an overflight of chattering birds/dissolving high chords unhatches Poo’s eerie buzzard voice. Other pianists sing along with their right hands; Kikuchi’s keening would beam in from beyond, an independent voice. On Hanamichi, his utterances are few and surprisingly on point, intensifying musical effect.

Two radically different “My Favorite Things” confirm Hanamichi’s improvisatory spontaneity: two days, two perspectives. Taking his time on the longer take, Kikuchi finds implications in the melody and harmony that skirling modal versions gloss over. As on “Abi” he strikes hammered-anvil chords, dynamic alloys of timbre, harmony and attack. They signify, and remind us, that Masabumi Kikuchi’s piano music is not about rippling over the keys but making the instrument sound.

Masabumi “Poo” Kikuchi (October 19, 1939 – July 6, 2015) was a Japanese jazz pianist and composer. Born in Tokyo, he studied music at the Tokyo Art College High School. He worked with a diverse range of musicians, including Lionel Hampton, McCoy Tyner, Mal Waldron, Elvin Jones, Miles Davis, and Gary Peacock. His vast discography covered a wide range of styles, ranging from straight-up post-bop and vanguard classical to fusion, synthesizer, and digital dub. After winning a DownBeat magazine contest for overseas musicians, he won a full scholarship for Berklee College of Music, playing piano for Sonny Rollins’ Japanese tour before departing for the United States. He gained renown as a leader, sideman, and featured guest, recording albums and touring with jazz music’s top players. Over the decades he experimented with electric music, synthesizer, improvisation, and new forms. In 1990 he released the Bill Laswell-produced Dreamachine and began his significant, longtime collaboration with drummer Paul Motian. He continued to play and release new music until his death in 2015.

Noah Preminger & Kim Cass | "THUNDA"

THUNDA is the new digital release from longtime friends and colleagues saxophonist Noah Preminger and bassist Kim Cass, out via Dry Bridge Records.  

The album showcases the electrifying energy of the music on ten original tracks. While Preminger and Cass met during their college days in 2004, they didn’t start playing together until Cass moved to New York City after a brief stint on the West Coast. Through their mutual focus on pushing the boundaries of instrumental virtuosity toward innovative uses of rhythm and harmony, the two forged a strong connection, working together on countless performances and collaborations, including more than half a dozen of Preminger’s albums. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic led to cancellations of their planned live tours, Preminger and Cass turned to technology as a safe outlet for creating and recording new music. THUNDA, Preminger’s sixteenth and Cass’ second release as band leaders, takes the artists’ compositions and improvisations into new territory.

“This is the first recording I’ve made remotely and entirely at home,” says Preminger. “It also marks the first recording where I play and layer multiple instruments, all entirely improvised. Kim is one of the most imaginative bassists and musical voices in jazz and this project truly got both of us to reach outside the box.”

Jim Yanda | "A Silent Way"

Guitarist Jim Yanda boldly ventures into unexplored territory with decades-long collaborators Phil Haynes and Herb Robertson on adventurous free improv outing. A Silent Way, evokes the rich textures and absorbing atmospherics of the Miles Davis classic while striking out into startling new territory.

For even the most casual of jazz fans, the title of A Silent Way, the latest album by the exploratory guitarist Jim Yanda, will inevitably evoke the name of another album by one of the music’s most iconic figures. That’s no accident. Like Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way, Yanda’s trio excursion with trumpet player Herb Robertson and drummer Phil Haynes ventures into often stark, spacious, richly textured territories.

Beyond that commonality, however, there’s very little chance that the two albums could be mistaken for one another – while each proposes a silent way, each carves its own distinctive path into the vast quietude. Yanda’s Silent Way is a constantly surprising and inventive conversation between three longtime collaborators determined to discover new possibilities with their respective instruments and the interaction between them.

“The connection is a little oblique,” admits Yanda. “But it's definitely there in the approach, the openness – the idea of letting the horn be out there playing ideas with the group responding. Something about that aesthetic allowed us to be audacious enough to call the project A Silent Way, which I think gives people a reference point to draw them into its world.”

Having some recognizable landmarks does help in navigating the mysterious, amorphous landscapes conjured by Yanda and his trio on A Silent Way. It can be equally effective, though, to simply allow oneself to get lost wandering its cavernous sonic spaces, delighting in the crunch and scrape of Haynes’ percussive arsenal, being lured along by Yanda’s wiry lines before getting startled by a sudden blast from Robertson’s trumpet. Sputtering horn bleats are shrouded in howling feedback, an insistent rattling is dissected by the skittering of fingers on strings, a nonsensical chorus of chattering voices erupts from Robertson’s synthesizer – it’s an array of sounds as seemingly limitless as it is fascinatingly abstract.

“Our sensibilities about space and texture are fostered by our common ethos,” Yanda explains. “There has to be a kind of deep listening and deep empathy there. From the first note, Herb opens an immediate portal into a subconscious space of pure creativity. Phil and I join him in that space and that fosters an incredible camaraderie.”

Despite the longevity of the relationships represented in the trio – Yanda and Haynes have been working together since their student days at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, nearly four decades ago, while both connected with Robertson through their Brooklyn rehearsal space, the Corner Store, in the 1990s – A Silent Way marks the first time that they’ve convened as a trio.

Haynes and Yanda are typically found in more composed scenarios, such as Haynes’ “jazz-grass” string band Free Country, the genre-bending organ trio The Hammond Brothers with Steve Adams, and Yanda’s decades-long trio with bassist Drew Gress. Yanda and Robertson, meanwhile, share a long-running free improvisational duo, while Haynes and Robertson released a pair of improvised recordings on CIMP back in 2000, Ritual and Brooklyn-Berlin.

A Silent Way was recorded in Yanda’s New Jersey living room, the same space where it was born. The guitarist hosted a series of free improv sessions at his home, and invited Haynes and Robertson to join him one particularly fruitful day in early 2019, with engineer Jon Rosenberg expertly capturing the fragile atmosphere. “Right after the first session, it was universally agreed by all of us that there was something special here,” Yanda recalls. “We immediately said, ‘Let's do it again.’ So we had another couple of sessions throughout the spring, and eventually came to the realization that we should document this. We met over a weekend in June, rolled tape, and ended up with a tremendous amount of material.”

In another parallel to Miles’ In a Silent Way, Haynes took on the Teo Macero role, sifting through the hours of material to assemble the most captivating moments. That he found enough thrilling music to fill two full discs is testament to the scintillating chemistry shared by these three master improvisers. Despite the lack of strictures on the trio’s interactions, a definite architecture emerges from even the most sparse and ephemeral of pieces.

“There's a tendency in free improvisation to make sound without listening deeply, because it’s so open and there are no rules,” Yanda says. “It's a much greater challenge to make what you're doing cohere with the overall context, to try to give things some form and structure.”

Yanda, Haynes and Robertson are all deeply attuned to that approach, each with his own long history of creating compelling music from the moment’s inspiration. A Silent Way is a particularly shining example of those tendencies, one that rewards the same close, focused listening and inspired discovery that the artists felt when creating it.

Scott Reeves Quintet | "The Alchemist"

The Alchemist rescues a brilliant 2005 performance by the masterful Scott Reeves Quintet, featuring Russ Spiegel, Mike Holober, Howard Britz, Andy Watson, and Reeves on alto flugelhorn, alto valve trombone and electronics

Multi-instrumentalist, bandleader and composer Scott Reeves expected to have some time on his hands upon his retirement from teaching, following an illustrious career on the faculties of the City College of New York, Juilliard and other prestigious institutions. But when the pandemic struck just a few months later, Reeves suddenly found himself with an abundance of free time as performance opportunities disappeared. In addition to a productive period of writing for his longstanding big band, the Scott Reeves Jazz Orchestra (with two recent recordings on Origin), he now had the opportunity to revisit his own archives and discover some hidden gems.

That search unearthed the stunning new release The Alchemist, featuring a previously unheard live date by the Scott Reeves Quintet – a never-recorded band featuring Reeves on alto flugelhorn, alto valve trombone and electronics, alongside guitarist Russ Spiegel, pianist and keyboardist Mike Holober, bassist Howard Britz and drummer Andy Watson. Captured in May 2005 at the City College of New York.

“I don't even know if I ever meant to release it,” Reeves says of the shelved recording. “But when I listened to it last summer I thought the band sounded really inspired that night. I also thought it might have been some of the best playing I've ever done that's been recorded. So I determined to get this project out there.”

The issue that Reeves faced, and that may have discouraged him from attempting to release the concert at the time, was that the recording suffered from audio issues. The evening was well recorded by students from the college’s recording technology program, but it was intended merely to document a collection of new compositions. No baffling was used between the instruments, leading to drum leakage and other flaws.

In the intervening years, however, Reeves had begun working with Grammy Award-winning recording/mixing engineer Brian Montgomery, who has worked with such luminaries as Paul McCartney, Esperanza Spalding, Donald Fagen and the Maria Schneider Orchestra. Reeves brought the files to Montgomery, who worked his audio magic and rescued the recording, isolating each instrument and remixing it. “I have high regard for Brian’s abilities to bring out the best quality in a project,” Reeves says. “Eventually he was able to get the sound to what you would expect out of a good studio recording.”

Why go to all this trouble for a single concert recording from a decade and a half in the past? The music speaks for itself in response to that question. The Alchemist finds these five brilliant musicians in top form, exploring what was for Reeves new and adventurous territory. Best known as a trombonist, the axe he yields in big bands led by Dave Liebman and Bill Mobley as well as his own 17-piece Scott Reeves Orchestra, Reeves here focuses on some more unusual instruments from his arsenal: the alto valve trombone and the alto flugelhorn. In addition, he’d recently begun experimenting with altering the sound of his horns with electronics, a path he abandoned not long after. (The rediscovery of this recording, however, has led him to dust off some of that equipment once again.)

“I started playing trombone when I was 10,” Reeves explains. “As I got along in my career I struggled to find my own voice outside the influence of J.J. Johnson, Curtis Fuller, Slide Hampton and the like. I found the alto flugelhorn, which is a German instrument between the range of a trombone and a trumpet, and I really fell in love with that sound.”

The alto valve trombone had been used in 19th military bands but long since passed into obscurity when Reeves had one specially made for him. “The sound of these two instruments being slightly higher than the trombone as well as the use of valves opened up ways of reshaping what I was going to play,” Reeves describes. “I really started finding my own individual identity on them. In fact, Dave Liebman once had me take a solo in his big band and told me, ‘Play that alto whatever-you-call-it thing. You have more of an identity on that.’ Which is similar to what Miles Davis told him about the soprano saxophone.”

Exploring the mysterious contours of a Phrygian vamp, “New Bamboo” opens the album with Reeves’ altered horn and Spiegel’s guitar lines melding into shimmering textures. The Gil Evans-inspired “Shapeshifter,” based on a 12-tone row, is one of three pieces debuted at this concert that has since been revived with the Jazz Orchestra; the melancholy bossa nova “Without the Trace” gave the big band’s 2018 album its title, and Reeves’ funky arrangement of the classic “All Or Nothing At All” was expanded for the same recording. “The Alchemist” is a scintillating soul-jazz burner dedicated to Miles Davis, while “Remembrances” is an achingly tender ballad.

Thoroughly modern in conception and timelessly thrilling in execution, The Alchemist sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday and is every bit as exhilarating as if it was. “I think it's probably the best small group work I've ever done in my life,” Reeves concludes. “I'm very happy to finally have it out there.”

Scott Reeves is a trombonist, alto flugelhornist, composer, arranger, author, and college jazz educator. He plays trombone with the Dave Liebman big band and has also performed with the Vanguard Orchestra and Chico O’Farrill’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, as well as with artists such as Steve Wilson, Kenny Werner, James Williams, Rich Perry, Bill Mobley, John Patitucci, and others. He has written commissions for the Liebman Big Band, the Westchester Jazz Orchestra, and groups in Rome and Kyoto. The Scott Reeves Jazz Orchestra has released two CDs: Portraits and Places and Without a Trace, both on Origin Records. Reeves is a Professor Emeritus at The City College of New York and also taught at the Juilliard School and other regional universities. He is the author of two textbooks on jazz improvisation.

Reissued albums by seminal jazz artists Bill Evans and Joe Henderson

Germany’s first jazz label, MPS Records, reissued a couple of albums from their historic catalogue recently when pianist Bill Evans’ “Symbiosis” and saxophonist Joe Henderson’s “Mirror Mirror” dropped on vinyl and CD in the United States and Canada via Edel Germany in partnership with Bob Frank Entertainment.

Best known for recording primarily in piano, drums and bass settings, Evans was recognized as the leader of one of the most influential jazz trios and lauded for his work on Miles Davis’s iconic “Kind of Blue” album. 1974’s “Symbiosis” finds Evans in the rare company of an orchestra led by Claus Ogerman, a prolific arranger-composer who has crafted noteworthy recordings in an array of genres by legendary artists such as Frank Sinatra, Stan Getz and Antonio Carlos Jobim to modern day figures like Diana Krall. Ogerman had a flair for melding contemporary classical and jazz, utilizing New York Philharmonic and jazz musicians.

The set list on “Symbiosis,” which was reissued last month as a limited-edition orange vinyl LP, is devoid of standards and Evans’ originals. With Evans dispensing lyrical solos on acoustic and electric keyboards, the album’s audacious repertoire is diverse, spanning minimalistic passages, samba-tinged big band numbers, and grand tunes highlighted by lavish string section tracks and cinematic selections typical of the 1970s era. Throughout, Evans inventive finger work remains the captivating centerpiece.

Henderson possessed a distinctive sound and style that remained consistent throughout his remarkable career that included a star-making stint playing in Horace Silver’s Quintet and a run as a member of Herbie Hancock’s band. On 1980’s “Mirror Mirror,” which was reissued last month as a limited-edition green vinyl disc, the GRAMMY winner is accompanied by a stellar acoustic lineup recorded in Los Angeles featuring Chick Corea on piano, Ron Carter on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. Corea and Carter each contributed two compositions to the set list while Henderson’s “Joe’s Bolero” is a piece typical of this hard bop, avant-garde recording, a cut that reflects one of the saxman’s primary influences, John Coltrane. The hornman’s virtuoso tenor emotes mellow melodies on the disc’s lone standard, “What’s New?” Although credited as a solo Henderson album, each member of the all-star quartet is given equal opportunity to shine.

Since June, MPS has been reissuing albums from their catalogue in North America by jazz royalty, including Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, Dexter Gordon, Freddie Hubbard, The Count Basie Orchestra and George Duke. 

Guy Buttery, Mohd. Amjad Khan & Mudassir Khan | "One Morning In Gurgaon"

It was whilst South African musician Guy Buttery was on a concert tour of India, as part of a trio with the highly acclaimed Indian classical musicians Mohd. Amjad Khan and Mudassir Khan, that the seed was sown for “One Morning In Gurgaon”. Remarkably, all three musicians had never met before, let alone made any music together, and before their first concert they had only “practised” via voice recordings and exchanged texts somewhere between Hindi and English to break down the various parts of the set. Ultimately it was this unrehearsed approach combined with the inauspicious and eleventh-hour nature of their first meeting which provided the stardust for this collaboration as Guy explains, “Due to Delhi traffic, our intended dry run was shaved right down to a single 60 minutes giving us just enough time to shake hands, share a chai and tune our instruments. As a result, we went in totally blind to that first concert yet what unfolded on stage over the next hour left me in complete awe. So much so that after our performance I immediately set about asking anyone who would listen, how we could track down a local studio to capture our newly formed trio. As luck would have it, the very place where we had performed that first night had a basic recording set-up and we somehow managed to secure a single morning to record.”

Guy’s fascination and love for India’s musical wonders and myriad landscapes are deep rooted and go back to his first brush with the subcontinent when he was just twenty-one. Talking about the synchronicities of his first encounter with Amjad and Mudassir and the unexpected studio session that followed to create this album, Guy explains the importance of that first trip, “I don’t believe any of my prior or subsequent travels have impacted and shaped me as much as that trip did. I came back a vegetarian, 10 kgs lighter, with a severe case of lockjaw and a deep love for a land, its people and its intoxicating music.”

Both Mohd. Amjad Khan and Mudassir Khan are renowned masters of their respective instruments, steeped in the Indian classical traditions from a young age. Although guardians of their musical heritage, One Morning In Gurgaon highlights their willingness to push the envelope of their instruments, expertly highlighted by Amjad whose tabla playing is marked by uncanny intuition and masterful improvisational dexterity. Likewise, Mudassir has harnessed the improvisational potential of the rare and notoriously difficult sarangi (Indian box cello), an instrument whose sound most resembles that of the human voice, and an instrument which Guy confesses to, “Being overly obsessed with.” The combined experience of Guy’s acoustic guitar wizardry with these two Indian master musicians culminates in an album which is as pure and uninhibited an example of empathetic collaboration as you’ll find anywhere: a musical conversation between musicians exchanging each other’s ideas on the spur of the moment and feeling out the areas of crossover with a depth that goes far beyond pure mimicry. The album also highlights Guy’s mbira (thumb piano) playing on the beautiful ‘I Know This Place’, providing a sublime and hypnotic melody which seamlessly blends with the tabla and sarangi accompaniment.

It seems impossibly fortuitous that the celestials and traffic gods aligned to allow One Morning In Gurgaon to be. All the music you hear contained within is the result of singular takes, as time didn’t allow for more. Everything had to be spontaneous as Guy describes, “Amjad chose what songs we would play. Our rendition of “Raag Yaman” presented here was the first and only time we ever played it together. Mudassir gave me a skeleton idea of the raga in spoken word and what unfolded is what you hear here. Everything else was almost certainly telepathic. I was well aware of the intuition and openness in the room that consequential morning in Gurgaon. I feel incredibly humbled to have shared in sound with these two masters and am forever grateful to them both for their profound musicianship, their warm hearts and their spontaneous spirits.”

Richard Smith | "Soul Share"

“You never forget the first band you toured with or the first albums you made,” said contemporary jazz guitarist Richard Smith, who likened the bond between bandmembers to sports teammates.

“Music is a team sport. There’s giving and lots of tossing the ball to your teammates.”

Sports teams speak of the team building that takes place during road trips and the lessons learned that bring athletes closer together. Smith says the same applies to musicians. In his case, he spent a formative decade playing alongside hitmaking saxophonist Richard Elliot. While that musical partnership was formed over 30 years ago, the relationship created a lasting bond as evidenced by Smith’s forthcoming single, “Soul Share,” which features Elliot. The track will begin collecting playlist adds on September 20.  

Smith began touring and recording with Elliot in the late 1980s. The guitarist had just graduated the music school at the University of Southern California and began an “intense” study in the saxman’s band during a seminal time for instrumental music that incorporated contemporary jazz, R&B, funk, fusion and pop.

“The genre was still developing. We just called it instrumental soul, or fusion, or funky-jazz and our music was comparatively intense as far as tempos, beats and solos. Richard (Elliot) was the quintessential strong leader having come out of the Tower of Power training camp. He’s a massive talent and the band had ridiculously good players. Being in Richard’s band provided an incredible education post-USC experience. I always called the Elliot band my second master’s degree,” said Smith, who wrote and produced “Soul Share” with fellow guitarist and Billboard chart-topper Adam Hawley.

Although “Soul Share” has a vivacious melody, buoyant guitar-and-sax banter, and a boisterous feel, those early tours weren’t easy or glamorous.  

“We toured in a rented Lincoln Town Car and equipment vans, taking turns driving, occasionally through snow-storms and tornadoes, to play shows in bowling alleys or open for larger acts that wouldn’t let us have monitors on stage or use lights. We became jazz commandos, winning our audience one tough gig at a time,” recalled Smith.

“Soul Share” benefits from a big band arrangement by Jacob Mann and David Mann’s horn arrangement along with trumpet play by Trevor Neumann. Drummer Eric Valentine and bassist Mel Brown tap out the rhythmic structure to which Hawley chimes in on keyboards and rhythm guitar. “Soul Share” clearly relishes in the enduring chemistry between Smith’s nifty fretwork and Elliot’s impassioned sax, a track celebrating an era as well as the connection between the two protagonists.

“It’s hard to think in terms of decades, but one of the best things about getting older is looking back and ‘getting’ each other on a sort of survivor level. Richard and I shared that for ten years forged through thousands of miles and many hit songs. ‘Soul Share’ honors those lessons I learned in ‘the college of the road,’ way back at the start of a new music genre,” said Smith, who will include the single on his 13th album, “Language of the Soul,” which he hopes to drop in the first quarter next year from Chillharmonic Media.

Smith has been in a reflective mindset ever since his stage three throat cancer diagnosis last year, which inspired his first single in five years, “Let’s Roll,” that was released last March. Now cancer free, he continues as a professor in the guitar department at the Thornton School of Music at USC, which is where he first encountered his former student, Hawley. In addition to his years spent flanking Elliot, Smith has recorded or shared the stage with Peter White, Kenny G, Dave Koz, Gerald Albright, Mindi Abair, Eric Marienthal, Brian Bromberg, Warren Hill, Everette Harp and Dan Siegel. His “SOuLIDIFIED” (2003) album spent 17 weeks in the top 10 in terms of airplay and his 2015 set, “Tangos,” spent more than five months in the top 10 of the indie and contemporary jazz charts.

New Music Releases: Xavier Omar, Jus & Georgia Anne Muldrow, Patricia Scott

Xavier Omar - If You Feel

Beautiful vocals from Xavier Omar – a singer who maybe takes us back to the classic 70s sound of the Isley Brothers with the way he cascades and flows between the record's gentle grooves – but an artist who's definitely set up here in a much more contemporary mode! Omar's a soul singer, but one with a very open ear to hip hop production – and the approach of the record often takes his vocals and layers them alongside these gentle beats and really crisp sonic touches that give the whole record a wonderful sound, but without ever denying the vocal strength that is at the core. There's a few moments where guest MCs step into the mix to further the hip hop vibe – and titles include "Want/Need", "Something Changed", "So Much More", "Surf", "Bon Iverre", "More Than Less", and "Lil Healer". ~ Dusty Groove

Jus & Georgia Anne Muldrow - Else

Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, multi-instrumentalist Jus is now based in Melbourne, Australia. Moving to another country allowed him to blend multiple cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds into his music. He aims for listeners of his music to achieve noting but a ‘mature, mind-relaxing experience’. His love for music stretches for decades and plays a phenomenal role in shaping up his career as a jazz and hip-hop producer -he uses archaic equipment, live instrumentation and vinyl loops to find his own unique sound. For his latest track, the producer has joined up with the legendary Georgie Anne Muldrow (Grammy Award nominated) for a release on Melbourne’s Inner Tribe Records.

Patricia Scott - Cupid

A well-respected singer/songwriter and performer who is much beloved in the Philadelphia area, Patricia Scott has collaborated as a writer with some of the most respected names in the Philly Soul world including the legendary Bobby Eli, and Darnell Jordan of The People's Choice - and has performed to delighted audiences at various venues in and around the City of Brotherly Love. Her brand-new original song, "Cupid," is presented here with superb backing provided by the first family of Philly soul music - the legendary Ingram Brothers band. Not only a great songwriter, Patricia can also deliver the goods vocally with the best of 'em.

Legendary Drummer BERNARD “PRETTY” PURDIE Holds A Master Class presented by Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center

You won’t want to miss a Master Class with Bernard “Pretty” Purdie on Thursday, September 23, 2021 @ 6 PM PDT, hosted by the Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center, 4305 Degnan Blvd. #101, Los Angeles, CA 9008.

This is a rare opportunity for drummers and music enthusiasts alike to learn directly from this iconic master drummer. Bernard Purdie will share information on his career and legacy, demonstrate diverse styles including his famous “Purdie Shuffle,” hold a question-and-answer session and talk about his drumming philosophy, ghost notes, dynamics, time, tune, and more. Whether you’re a drummer, drumming enthusiast, or simply a music fan wanting to deepen your groove, this is a priceless opportunity to learn directly from one of the greatest of all time!

This legendary, iconic artist has performed and recorded with Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Hank Crawford, Gene Ammons, Bette Midler, Hall and Oates, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Quincy Jones, BB King, James Brown, Simon and Garfunkel, Benny Golson, Albert Ayler, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Freddie Hubbard, Yusef Lateef, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bob Marley, Donny Hathaway, Steely Dan, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, and countless more. 

Happening at Barbara Morrison Performing Art Center throughout the month of September “Keyboard Kings” will be featured.  Every Monday at 8 PM PT blues piano and keys master musicians will be featured.  Each concert opens with a set of traditional acoustice and slide guitar blues with Bernie Pearl and his trio.

Sept 6:    Louisiana LaLa Music with L.A. Zydeco accordion star Dennis Gurwell

Sept. 13: Boogie-Woogie Stomp with Pianist, writer, Entertainer supreme Rob Rio

Sept. 20: Legendary pianist, composer, producer,  recording artist Hense Powell

Sept. 27: A stroll down Blues Alley with popular local favorite Mo Beets

For all to  enjoy legendary jazz performances virtually on the Barbara Morrison Music social media platform at: https://www.facebook.com/BarbaraMorrisonMusic/

Born on June 11, 1942, in Elkton, Maryland, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie is an American drummer, considered an influential and innovative funk musician. He is known for his precise musical time keeping and his signature use of triplets against a half-time backbeat: the "Purdie Shuffle.

He hit the New York music scene in the early 1960’s and landed his first hit with Mickey and Sylvia — the beginning of a stellar career. This led to his 25-year association with Aretha Franklin. Purdie started working with Aretha Franklin as musical director in 1970 and held that position for five years. His best-known track with Franklin was "Rock Steady", on which he played what he described as "a funky and low-down beat". Drummer, musician, producer, arranger and musical director, Bernard Purdie can be proud of a discography of over 3,000 recordings.

Who provided the backbeat for Steely Dan's "Aja”? And for whom have Isaac Hayes, Donny Hathaway, B.B. King, Joe Cocker, Jeff Beck and Alan Jackson reserved that stool behind the drum kit?  Bernard “Pretty” Purdie.  He has anchored sessions with the Rolling Stones, James Brown and Tom Jones with equal ease.

His grooves have been sampled, cut and pasted on dance tracks and his groove is sought after in all genres of jazz, soul and funk. He is now a reference point in the basics of modern drumming with the innovation of the Purdie Shuffle, which was the inspiration behind Jeff Porcaro’s ‘Rosanna’, a fusion of Purdie’s Shuffle and John Bonham’s 'Fool In The Rain.' His definitive style has anchored sessions on some of the greatest songs of the modern era.

More recently he was the drummer for the 2009 Broadway revival of Hair and appeared on the associated Broadway cast recording. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013. For more information visit our website at; https://www.bernardprettypurdie.com

The Fontanas | "The Luxury Of Time"

Rooted in soul and soaked in funky Latin & Brazilian influences The Fontanas have found the sweet spot between tight funk grooves and swinging Latin rhythms taking influence from the likes of The Dap Kings and Banda Black Rio, The Fontanas have built their solid live reputation through a series of knockout European tours and festival performances. 

Featuring the inimitable Kay Elizabeth on vocals and harnessed by producer Sam Fontanas, the band come together to produce a sound which packs in Brazilian percussion with a killer brass section via a crack squad of friends and musicians who play alongside the likes of Incognito, Mr Scruff and Alice Russell. 

2020 saw the EP release which included their scorching modern day version of Brazilian classic ‘Capoeira Mata Um’ that received airplay from Cerys Matthews on BBC6 Music amongst others. 

With time on their hands last year, the band set to work on completing their much anticipated 2nd album which landed on 3rd September 2021 and includes a selection of singles and guest remixes to support the release. 

Opening single ‘Love Be The Weapon’ welcomes producer Jon Moon (Amy Winehouse) into the Fontanas familia to deliver a super charged traditional funk anthem, with a Daptone studio feel and at home amongst the best heavyweight modern funk pioneers. Craig Charles was ‘loving it!’ 

The album title 'The Luxury Of Time' taps into the change of pace experienced during lockdown. Combine this with the idea that this period offered a chance for us to pause for thought and find time to create and the album was born. The album draws on a variety/range of influences from vintage soul funk to heavyweight Latin and Brazilian grooves and skilfully fuses these elements together to form a modern day dance record ideally placed for changing times.  

Bob Marley | "The Capitol Session 1973"

An incredible lost slice of music from the young Bob Marley – an unissued set of recordings done at the Capitol Studios in LA, at a time when the Wailers were just beginning to rise in global power! The session came at an unusual moment for the group – they had come to the US to tour with Sly & The Family Stone, and were fired because the audiences were not yet ready for their groove – leaving the group a bit astray in California. But an opportunity arose to record at Capitol, a performance that was also filmed – and the result is this amazing set of tracks that captures Bob and the group at a level that's even different than their massive Island Records sets to come. There's a current of funk running through a number of these tracks, and a lean groove that's wonderfully soul-drenched throughout – not just in Marley's vocals, but in the overall performance of the rest – a tight sextet that includes Peter Tosh, Joe Higgs, Aston Barrett, Carlton Barrett, and Earl Lindo. Titles include "Rastaman Chant", "Midnight Ravers", "Put It On", "Stop That Train", "Get Up Stand Up", "You Can't Blame The Youth", "Slave Driver", "Duppy Conqueror", and "Burnin & Lootin".  ~ Dusty Groove

Helen Sung | "Quartet+"

Pianist/composer and 2021 Guggenheim Fellow Helen Sung celebrates the work of influential women composers on her latest album Quartet+, crafting new arrangements of tunes by Geri Allen, Carla Bley, Mary Lou Williams, Marian McPartland and Toshiko Akiyoshi while carrying the tradition forward with her own stunning new works. Co-produced by violin master Regina Carter, the album pairs Sung’s quartet with the strings of the GRAMMY® Award-winning Harlem Quartet in an inventive meld of jazz and classical influences. 

Available September 17, 2021, on Sunnyside Records, Quartet+ was conceived and produced during the Covid-19 pandemic and made possible by a grant from the NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre with additional support from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the Queens Arts Council. It allows Sung, who also studied classical violin, to realize a long-held dream of writing for strings while maintaining the improvisatory spark of her stellar quartet, featuring saxophonist and flutist John Ellis, bassist David Wong, and drummer Kendrick Scott. 

The double quartet format is the latest evolution of Sung’s career-long search for inspiration beyond the boundaries of jazz. Her classical background emerged before on 2007’s Sungbird (After Albéniz) – the title track of which is reprised for Quartet+ – a thrilling dialogue between modern jazz and 19th century Romanticism. Her most recent album, Sung With Words, incorporated the words of poet Dana Gioia, while upcoming projects delve into the pianist’s Asian-American heritage and the intersection of jazz and neuroscience. 

While the Houston native veered away from her classical training after undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin, Sung admits that the early influence has maintained a strong pull on her musical thinking. “I guess I can't escape my classical heritage,” she says with a laugh. “It's definitely part of how I hear and how I write.” 

It also gives her a connoisseur’s ear for the many ways in which jazz and classical music have converged, not always successfully. “Since I also studied violin, I'm really picky about how I want it to sound in a jazz setting,” she explains. “When I first heard Regina Carter she was playing with Kenny Barron at the Blue Note, and I remember thinking, ‘That's how I would want to play jazz violin.’ When I heard the Harlem Quartet I had that same feeling.” 

Sung crossed paths with the acclaimed quartet during a cross-genre performance with clarinetist Eddie Daniels at Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2018. She immediately approached the musicians after the show to suggest a collaboration. The opportunity came with the NYC Women’s Fund grant, which also gave the project a direction Sung had not previously ventured into with her own music, following on work undertaken with Terri Lyne Carrington’s Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice and Roxy Coss’ Women In Jazz Organization. 

“In the past I tried to avoid the whole ‘women in jazz’ thing because I felt music should speak for itself,” she says. “But as I've gotten older, I’ve begun to feel that’s not the most complete way to deal with it. So I’m starting to grapple with the issues, and will do my best to approach things with honesty and candor.”

It’s hardly the first time she’s explored the work of the composers represented on Quartet+, however. In 2007 she won the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition and has since paid tribute to the history-spanning pianist at Harlem Stage and on NPR. She was a guest on Marian McPartland’s revered Piano Jazz in 2006 and has performed in tributes to Geri Allen in the wake of Allen’s untimely death in 2017. 

Allen’s “Feed the Fire” begins the album in dramatic fashion, with a striking new counter melody added to the original’s blistering rhythms. Williams’ “Mary’s Waltz” is refashioned in a way that draws from the classical tradition as well as the blues, a multi-faceted approach that the history-spanning composer would surely have appreciated. Sung heard a symphonic element to Akiyoshi’s “Long Yellow Road” which she elaborated on in her arrangement, while “Wrong Key Donkey” vividly captures the originality and eccentricity of Carla Bley’s complex whimsy. 

Sung’s homage to McPartland fuses a string quartet rewrite of “Melancholy Mood” with a group improvisation on “Kaleidoscope,” the theme from her iconic radio show. These pieces are interspersed with snippets of Dr. Billy Taylor’s “A Grand Night for Swinging.” Sung discovered the piece from a Mary Lou Williams’ recording, and decided to add it to honor Taylor’s early championing of female jazz musicians, which included founding the Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Festival. 

In addition, Sung’s original composition “Coquette” was inspired by one of German composer Clara Schumann’s “Romance” pieces, with Ellis’ playful, lilting flute flirting with the elegant strings. “Lament for Kalief Browder,” dedicated to the Bronx teenager who committed suicide following his arduous three-year imprisonment without trial at Rikers Island, was previously recorded on Sung With Words. Sung had long envisioned the piece with strings, realized here in a breathtaking rendition. “Sungbird,” meanwhile, is reimagined from the original’s Latin-inflected jazz quintet version as a passionate dance sans drums. 

While the entire album was created during the pandemic, the two-movement “Temporality,” a Jazz Coalition commission, directly addresses the strange year (and counting) we’ve all just come through. “The way I experienced time became very elastic during the pandemic,” Sung says. “Each day felt interminably long, one blurring into the next, and then suddenly an entire month had passed! ‘Time Loops’ is about that, while ‘Elegy for the City’ is my lament for the terrible human loss suffered by New York and other cities.” 

Despite the stresses of the pandemic, Sung is enjoying a particularly fruitful period, with several fascinating projects in the works aside from the release of Quartet+. She’ll apply her 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship to a multi-movement piece for big band slated for completion in 2022. With a Chamber Music America Digital Residency grant, she’s producing a series of events this year using the tragic recent attacks on the AAPI community as a catalyst for interdisciplinary events with her quartet and a poet, a DJ and an installation artist. Sung also received a New Music USA 2021 Music Creator Development Fund grant for a collaborative project with dancer and neuro-rehabilitation researcher Miriam King to create a dance program with original music for dementia/Alzheimer’s patients. Sung remarks, “If I’ve learned anything this past year and a half, it’s to not take anything for granted, be it people, relationships, opportunities…so I’m jumping in with arms wide open. I want to swallow life whole!”

Upcoming Helen Sung Performances:

September 16 | Flushing Town Hall (feat. Harlem Quartet) | New York, NY

September 18 | Lake George Arts "Jazz on the Lake" (feat. Jannina Norpoth) | Lake George, NY

October 1 | Amherst College (feat. Wistaria String Quartet) | Amherst, MA

Lauren Dukes Releases Debut Self-Titled EP

Emerging R&B Singer-songwriter Lauren Dukes is set to release her self-titled debut EP on September 2nd. For years Lauren Dukes has made a name for showcasing her talent for performing throughout the local Chicago scene. Her self-titled debut EP is a welcome calling card to an artist ready to breakthrough. Along with the announcement, Dukes unveils her new live session video for “Closure,” out now. 

“Closure” is a song with many applications, however, at its core the piece is about wanting what we may not be able to have again & having to accept whatever that answer is in the end. Dukes says, “It's something we all want. But it's rare to get it...closure.” 

On her upcoming 5-song EP, Dukes keeps a common thread of story-telling. The project encompasses a blend of blues, soul, jazz and R&B with Faith as the foundation that brings it all together. Dukes explains her writing process, “Much of what I write starts off by asking (God, the universe, then myself) "What is the message You want me to deliver? Then, I ask, "What do I want to express?"” 

The production behind the project is propelled by Lauren Dukes’ band, a talented cast of musicians including Nic Byrd (Guitar), Andy Sutton (drums & producer), Ola Timothy (Bass), Kris Lohn (Bass), Moses Hall (Keys), Latavius Mulvac (on Keys), Aiden Dehn (Sax), Shawn Maxwell (Sax), Shaun Martin of Snarky Puppy (Keys), Marques Carroll (Trumpet), Kirk Garrison (Trumpet), & Nicole Garza (background vocals). 

Earlier this year, Lauren Dukes released the EP’s lead single “Hectic Love Week.” The single and EP demonstrate Dukes’ commitment to her craft. She concludes, “Everything I do is with my whole heart. It is my passion. My ministry. I want everyone to walk away from listening feeling better than the way they came. Music has the power to do that, and I’m honored to get this opportunity to hopefully contribute.” 

Lauren Dukes  will be releasing live session music videos every Wednesday leading up to the 9/2 EP release date. Check out the first video Closure here: https://youtu.be/CLwlPA15R_k. The lead single “Hectic Love Week” is available now on all streaming platforms as well and received critical praise from the Chicago Sun Times, Medium, and The Deli.