Christine Jenson | "Day Moon"

We’ve witnessed and heard testimonies from countless musicians who were forced to struggle—financially and artistically—through the lockdowns of the pandemic. For some who have survived, there’s been the silver lining of a shift in perspective. Many artists dug deep in isolation and discovered the solution to long-elusive mysteries. Some let go of the tried-and-true and instead explored new means of expression.

While we’re hopefully emerging from the final Covid surge, it’s a welcome that an artist like Christine Jensen is opening ears to the magic of reflection on her long, turbulent days and months locked down.

The exceptional alto and soprano saxophonist from Canada releases the compelling Day Moon with her impressive quartet on Justin Time Records. The music is at turns, melancholic and ebullient, sober and playful. It’s a date where she creates an improvisational community of close friends in quartet and duo settings. “I got hit hard by the pandemic because I felt alone and was not doing what I’m supposed to do,” Jensen says. “So, I focused on my saxophones, teaching myself to present my sound, my solo voice. It’s almost like becoming the vocalist.”

At home leading her own renowned jazz orchestra, Jensen was forced to pull back by necessity into a more intimate space. “I had to shed the extra instrumentation that was always in my head,” she says. “So, I started to once a week play music with my longtime piano friend Steve Amirault. We worked together—he collaborated with me and pushed the boundaries. It created a stable place for me.”

Jensen invited her regular rhythm team of bassist Adrian Vedady and drummer Jim Doxas to mask workshop in small spaces to bring new colors into the ebb and flow of her compositions. The quartet members became, as she writes in her liner notes “my refuge and sanctuary.” She continues, “I feel like we met on thin ice through two cycles of seasons, meeting, greeting, and expanding on this repertoire, so that we could find a place that allowed us to trust and support each other at the highest level—not just in the music, but also in friendship, empathy and love, all words that the lockdown was attempting to repress.”

The album opens with the title tune that was written pre-pandemic for her chordless collective CODE Quartet that included trumpeter Lex French. The ‘60s Ornette Coleman-inspired band issued its Genealogy album for Justin Time in 2021. “It started out as a demo that ended up being the recording,” Jensen says. “At that point, the tune was just starting to jell, but I never glued to it. So, I thought let’s explore it wider harmonically with the piano instead of trumpet. The changes led to a surprising end.”

It’s the perfect lead tune inspired by a vision Jensen experienced. She was on her street in the middle of the day and saw a perfect moon in front of her with the sun glowing behind. “It was so strange,” she says. “It’s how the pandemic felt—living in another world. Other worldly and so sci-fi. It makes for a perfect prelude to the rest of the album where the world is shifting.”

The four-song suite Quiescence was written for a commission from New York’s Jazz Coalition that had raised funds for composers. Jensen sketched compositions including the Brazilian clave-feel “Tolos d’Abril,” her April Fool’s birthday song. “I wrote it because I was alone and I didn’t want to be in the Montreal snow and would just love to be anywhere from here,” Jensen says. “So, I thought of any opposite place, like a beach in Brazil.”

Highlights of the album feature the duo spots with Amirault, including the short-and-sweet torrent of the playful “Balcony Rules” based on “What Is This Thing Called Love?” and the gem of the album, the gorgeous rendering of Jimmy Van Heusen’s “Here’s That Rainy Day.”

“That’s one of my favorite cuts,” Jensen says. “Steve and I hit on the emotion in ballad playing that’s not often captured in this day and age. We just looked at each other, slowed the tune down and played our feelings. I take the melody line and Steve is focused on time. It’s a deep conversation and an elaboration of who we are as musicians. We stole the slowness of this tune from the style of Shirley Horn and her delivery of a ballad."

Finally, Jensen is happy to play some gigs to support Day Moon. In the future she continues to be on the tenure track at Eastman School of Music and has more music ready to go, including another CODE Quartet album, more recording and performing with her sister Ingrid Jensen and a big band recording to be released by the end of 2023. “It’s all in motion,” she says. “And who knows, maybe even an album of duos in the setting I discovered on Day Moon.”

Brandon Sanders | "Compton's Finest"

The only thing drummer Brandon Sanders has to prove on Compton’s Finest, set for an August 25 release on Savant Records, is his musicality. Making his recording debut at the age of 52, Sanders is past the youthful need for flashy pomp and circumstance. He instead focuses on serving the material—and supporting an ace roster of bandmates that includes vibraphonist Warren Wolf, tenor saxophonist Chris Lewis, pianist Keith Brown, and bassist Eric Wheeler—with taste and maturity.

Though he’s only now recording his first album, Sanders has been playing drums for the better part of three decades. Thus this “arrival” finds him already brimming with both competence and confidence. His subtle but unmistakable touch on the kit is the result of, in Sanders’s own words, years of “practicing, practicing, trying to develop my craft.”

Based in New York (where he works as a social worker as well as a musician), Sanders grew up in Compton, California—the famously troubled Los Angeles suburb. The title of the album (and its eponymous second track) are in the spirit of celebrating rather than denigrating the drummer’s hometown.

“I wanted to show that there is a positivity in Compton,” Sanders says, “that people have come out of there and done positive things.”

He couldn’t have provided a better example than Compton’s Finest. Between the lively, genial readings of the standards “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” and “Monk’s Dream,” the melodic soul of Sanders’s two originals “Compton’s Finest” and “SJB,” or the masterful vocals from special guest Jazzmeia Horn on Stevie Wonder’s “I Can’t Help It” and Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood,” Sanders’s maiden voyage on record is a serious accomplishment.

Part of that accomplishment, of course, is his selection of an ideal supporting cast. Wolf has been a friend of Sanders’s going back to their days together at Berklee College of Music; Horn is another friend of years’ standing; and Lewis, Brown, and Wheeler are three of the most exciting and in-demand talents in New York, for reasons that are clear when you hear them on the album. Not to be left out is Willie Jones III, Sanders’s fellow drummer and Angeleno, who served as producer.

“I am proud to work with Brandon,” Jones says. “He has instincts like a DJ and understands the pace of the recording must function like a live performance. As a musician and a bandleader, Brandon is intuitive and knows how to support the band.” As Compton’s Finest shows, he knows a lot more than that.

Brandon Sanders had the stars aligned for a life in jazz. Born February 20, 1971, in Kansas City, Kansas to a violinist mother and a trombonist father, he moved to Los Angeles as a toddler but came back every summer to visit his grandmother, who operated a renowned jazz club in Kansas City. By his teen years he was obsessed with the music.

However, it wasn’t initially his life’s plan. Sanders earned degrees in communication and social work from the University of Kansas (where he was also a walk-on practice player for the basketball team) and laid the groundwork for a long and successful career as a social worker. It wasn’t until he was 25 that he began learning to play the drums. Yet he threw himself into it, to the point that he went back to school at Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music.

Moving to New York in 2004, Sanders soon found himself a regular participant in the city’s busy jazz scene, creating a formidable reputation while working with the likes of Joe Lovano, Jeremy Pelt, and Esperanza Spalding. It was his old friend Warren Wolf who urged Sanders to record an album, encouragement that has now at last borne fruit as Compton’s Finest.

“As a kid I was introduced to everyone from James Brown, John Coltrane, and Sarah Vaughan to Stevie Wonder and Duke Ellington,” says Sanders. “These artists were constantly played on my mother and father’s turntable. My new album is a reflection of all the joys I experienced growing up listening to that music.”

New Music Releases From: Matt Wilde, Damon Locks & Rob Mazurek, Budos Band, High Pulp

Matt Wilde - Hello World

A record with all the personal warmth of the cover image – jazzy keyboards from Matt Wilde, but served up in a lean style that's nice and funky, but in sort of a gentle way! The record reminds us a bit of some of those excellent Japanese records from the start of the century – where a keyboardist might be working a Fender Rhodes over spare beats – although here, the rhythms are live on most numbers, with these cool crackling drums that really sound great! Wilde uses warmer sounds on the keyboard too, which makes for a really nice combination – very different than other funky keyboard records that maybe go for an over the top approach. Titles include "Eclipse", "Fields Of Green", "Savvy", "Trashes", "Who Cares", "Figuring", and "Entitled Smile". ~ Dusty Groove

Damon Locks & Rob Mazurek - New Future City Radio

Damon Locks and Rob Mazurek are no musical strangers to each other – their paths have crossed often on the Chicago and global scenes over many years of creative activity. Yet this project is also the first they've co-led, and it's an incredible document of how much both artists have grown in recent years – especially when they let their talents flow together on a project like this! At some level, the core of the work is the voice that both artists have discovered – Locks, his own more focused message and ability to find other voices to sample in with his own – Mazurek, a way of using his own voice more directly, in addition to his well-known work on trumpets and electronics. Both Rob and Damon are in the forefront here, criss-crossing electric and acoustic elements with voices live and sampled – mixed with guest voices from others, in a swirlingly creative project that not only lives up to the current legacy of International Anthem and the Chicago scene, but also advances it a few notches too. Titles include "Breeze Of Time", "New Future", "Yes", "The Sun Returns", "Future City", "Las Ninas Estan Escuchando", "Support The Youth", "10 Mins Past The Hour", and "Polaris Radio". ~ Dusty Groove

Budos Band - Frontier's Edge

That's a real Roger Dean-styled image on the cover, which maybe heralds the sound that's going on here for the Budos Band – an approach that's even heavier than before, with maybe stronger guitar and bass at times – yet a vibe that still bristles with the group's great use of percussion and horns! There's maybe a new sort of majesty going on here – as if someone whispered to the band that they could be at the top of the deep funk spectrum if they stepped on the gas a bit more – which they definitely do on this super-sharp set, delivering a half-dozen tunes that are completely smoking throughout! Titles include "Devil Doesn't Dance", "Kritn", "Crescent Blue", "Passage To Ashinol", "Curled Steel", and "Frontier's Edge". ~ Dusty Groove

High Pulp - Days In The Desert

High Pulp have some pretty heavy jazz guests this time around – a killer lineup that includes work from Jeff Parker, Kurt Rosenwinkel, James Brandon Lewis, and Brandee Younger – all musicians who definitely deepen the sound, while still letting the core combo bristle with all the funky edges of their previous work! The jazz soloists are working in a territory that's not strictly jazz – more the post-styles of labels like Brownswood or International Anthem – but also given a different sort of spin in the manner we've come to expect from High Pulp. Titles include "Dirtmouth", "Never In My Short Sweet Life", "Robert Pollard", "Solanin", "Unified Dakotas", "Fatigue", and "Bad Infinity". ~ Dusty Groove

Seminal avant-Reggae Band Creation Rebel releasing 1st new studio album in 40 years

Hostile Environment is the first album in over forty years from the legendary Creation Rebel, who were the original On-U Sound house band and responsible for classics such as Dub from Creation and Starship Africa. The trio of Crucial Tony, Eskimo Fox and Magoo are back with producer Adrian Sherwood to create a modern spin on their heavyweight dubwise rhythms. Listen to "Swiftly (The Right One)."

It is the seventh album credited to the group, who originally coalesced as a live backing group for the late, great Prince Far I, in the process sharing stages with the likes of The Clash, The Slits and Don Cherry. Vocals from their former band leader, preserved on archive tapes, feature on the new record, as well as guest contributions from the likes of Cyrus Richards (musical director for Horace Andy and the Dub Asante Band), Italian synth maestro Gaudi, and fast chat king Daddy Freddy. The album title refers to former British Prime Minister Theresa May’s controversial policy towards asylum seekers, and the recent Windrush scandal, all too relevant to a group of musicians of Jamaican origin who have spent their whole lives operating in the darkening shadow of a former colonial power with a staggeringly short memory for historic wrongs. 

The sound of the album is surprisingly diverse, ranging from the low-slung funk of opening track “Swiftly (The Right One)” which would slot easily in a DJ set alongside the likes of Nightmares On Wax or early releases on the Mo’Wax label, through to the Augustus Pablo-esque “Stonebridge Warrior” (previewed on the most recent volume of the long-running Pay It All Back series of compilations); spaced out, psychedelic dub on tracks such as “That’s More Like It” and “Off The Spectrum”, and even an inspirational, soulful and warm R&B earworm with “Whatever It Takes”. A clue to this eclectic approach comes in the form of penultimate track “The People’s Sound”, which pays tribute to West London sound system operator Daddy Vego. All of these tracks could fit into the kind of blues parties and shubeen dances the band members grew up on, and whose influence forms an intrinsic part of their musical DNA.

Producer Adrian Sherwood is on a hot streak currently, having masterminded late career renaissance records from the likes of Lee “Scratch” Perry and Horace Andy. On Hostile Environment he repeats the trick, teaming up with these incredible players and longtime friends to craft a worthy showcase for their collective talents.

RYAN KEBERLE’S COLLECTIV DO BRASIL Releases Second Album, CONSIDERANDO

What started as Ryan Keberle’s torrid love affair with Brazilian music has blossomed into something far deeper and more enduring. Considerando, the trombonist’s second album with the São Paulo-based Collectiv do Brasil, confirms that this is a singular relationship built to last. Slated for release on July 14, 2023, it’s a deep dive into the songbook of Edu Lobo, the beloved and pervasively influential Brazilian composer, guitarist and vocalist who bridges the bossa nova era with the 1970s flowering of MPB (música popular brasileira).

“I love that early and mid-70s period when there was this explosion of the most creative songwriting. So many of the Brazilian songwriters were able to do their thing, and Edu was at the center of it,” says the New York-based Keberle. “Edu was there in the beginning in the ’60s with the Quarteto Novo, the first time artists combined, jazz, Brazilian folk and pop, and just blew open the world for Brazilian composers.”

Considerando (Considering) follows in the footsteps of Collectiv do Brasil’s acclaimed 2022 debut release Sonhos da Esquina (Esquina Dreams), a ravishing celebration of Milton Nascimento, Toninho Horta and the landmark Minas Gerais-centered Clube da Esquina collective. The project features the original members, drummer Paulinho Vicente and pianist Felipe Silveira (who also contributes three arrangements), with bass player Felipe Brisola taking over for original bassist Thiago Alves, who had enrolled in a prestigious Swiss jazz program.

“This trio had been performing together their entire adult lives, playing three or four nights a week for more than a decade creating this shared language that we just don’t the opportunity to do here,” Keberle says. “Thiago was in Europe when we toured and recorded this new material and they’d replaced with him with Felipe. Of course, I trust them completely.”

The trust and commitment to creating an improvisation-laced musical world around Lobo’s ingenious compositions is evident throughout the album’s 10 tracks, which include original arrangements of seven Lobo songs. Drawing heavily from his classic 1971 album Sergio Mendes Presents Lobo, the album opens with the crackling “Zanzibar,” an arrangement that exemplifies the Brazilian jazz conversation at the heart of the Collectiv do Brasil collaboration. 

Lobo, who will turn 80 on August 29th, had a chance to preview the recording. “I can only say I loved the result,” he enthuses. “I’m impressed by Ryan’s ability to absorb our Brazilian accent in his solos and improvisations, and by the talent of the trio accompanying him with such precision and musicality.”

On the title track, a sensuous Lobo ballad, the quartet delivers a simple statement sans improvisation with Keberle caressing the melody with all the late-night rue of Frank Sinatra. He embraces another gorgeous Lobo ballad, “Toada”, (written with the late Minas composer Cacaso) with a tone so lithe and burnished it might surprise even close listeners to his previous recordings. Silveira’s elegant arrangement of one of Lobo’s best known tunes, “Pra Dizer Adeus,”­– introduced in 1966 by Elis Regina and recorded memorably in 1979 by Sarah Vaughan as “To Say Goodbye”– offers another opportunity for Keberle to lean into his seamless legato phrasing.

“It’s not something I’ve gotten to realize in other settings,” says Keberle, a capaciously-inspired composer whose discography encompasses a dozen albums exploring chamber jazz, post-bop, big band and various Latin jazz amalgams in an array of unusual instrumental combos. 

“I’ve discovered how much I love to play that role of vocalist. I really strive to find ways to ‘sing’ these melodies. It’s good timing because I’m a better musician than I was a decade ago. I’m much better prepared to make this kind of statement now.”

Keberle offers his own distillation of Lobo’s blend of jazz harmonies and Brazilian lyricism with “Edu,” a piece he wrote just before flying south, after months of reorchestrating Lobo’s music and inhabiting his sonic realm. He reimagined “Gallop,” a tune originally released on his 2014 Catharsis album Into the Zone set to a Uruguayan Candimbe groove, with more of a samba beat, while retaining the sing-song contours that seem to call out for a lyric.

Paulinho Vicente contributed “Be,” a patient, melancholic ballad that unfurls with a tightly focused narrative. And in a direct response to Sergio Mendes Presents Lobo, which concludes with a folky rendition of “Hey Jude,” Keberle closes out Considerando with an arrangement of Lennon and McCartney’s “Blackbird” centering on a Silveira solo that’s a model of melodic concision.

As a love letter to Edu Lobo, Considerando shines a welcome spotlight on a Brazilian master who should be better known in North America. As the latest dispatch in an ongoing correspondence, it’s a harbinger of more beauty to come, tracking the process of discovery that draws Keberle in ever deeper. In the Collectiv do Brasil, Keberle has found the ideal companions for this ongoing adventure.

Claudia Villela | "Cartas ao Vento"

Vocalist-pianist-composer Claudia Villela basks in the warmth of her hometown of Rio de Janeiro with Cartas ao Vento, set for a September 8 release on her own Taina Music label. When visiting her family last year, the San Francisco Bay Area artist rounded up some of her collaborators from her youth (drummer Marcelo Costa, bassist Jorge Helder, arranger Mario Adnet) and some of Brazil’s greatest players (guitarists Toninho Horta and Romero Lubambo, multi-reedists Edu Neves and Zé Nogueira, accordionist Vitor Gonçalves) to craft the first album Villela has made on Brazilian soil.

The result is a beautiful, highly disciplined collection of Villela’s originals, with a focus not on individuals’ improvisations but on the leader’s songcraft. “This is not a jazz album,” Villela stresses. “I wanted everything to be part of the song, to get away from the solo as a virtuoso statement.”

That said, Cartas ao Vento (Portuguese for “letters to the wind”) puts Villela’s own virtuoso writing abilities on vivid display. It’s in the soaring melody and wordless vocal break on “Meninando,” the seamless exchange between sweeping flow and rhythmic dance on “Chamego,” the stirring drama of “Instrumento,” and the surprising shapeshifts of “Agua Santa”—also a tour-de-force for Villela as a performer, taking extraordinary turns as both pianist and a cappella vocalist.

But Villela is not the only artist to shine on this album. Three of the pieces were written as settings for the words of great South American poets including Ana Cristina Cesar (“Flores do Mais”), Ramon Palomares (“Paramo”), and Mario Quintana (“Instrumento”). There’s also fine work from the instrumentalists, with the rhythm section of Helder and Costa giving exemplary performances throughout the album and guests such as Lubambo, Neves, and accordionist Vitor Gonçalves adding gorgeous color and deep pathos to Villela’s songs. On the writing side, Adnet also makes splendid contributions with charts for violin, reeds, and even (on “Bolero”) for the obscure but lovely opheicleide (played by Everson Moraes). It’s Villela, however, that brings the magic to Cartas ao Vento.

Claudia Villela was born August 27, 1961 in Rio de Janeiro. She grew up surrounded by music in her grandmother’s home, beginning to make music herself when she was only a year old. She started singing in college festivals around Rio at age 15, and before long found work as a studio musician. She also started performing around the city, while developing a book of original songs featuring her lyrics and music. Initially planning to enroll in medical school, Villela decided to combine her two passions and earned a B.A. in music therapy from the Brazilian Conservatory of Music.

Relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1980s, Villela quickly immersed herself in the region’s thriving jazz scene, gaining valuable experience with the Down Beat-award winning De Anza College Jazz Singers. She studied with NEA Jazz Master Sheila Jordan and with John Robert Dunlap of the New York Metropolitan Opera before making her recording debut with 1994’s Grammy-nominated Asa Verde.

She has since performed and recorded with such major jazz figures as Michael Brecker, Toots Thielemans, Toninho Horta, and Kenny Werner. She recorded a live performance at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, California, for broadcast on NPR; it was released as Live @ Kuumbwa 2004 in 2013. 2019 saw the appearance of her second live album, Encantada Live (compiled from several of Villela’s illuminating concert performances). Her recordings have included 1998’s Supernova, 2001’s Inverse/Universe, and 2004’s Dreamtales (an improvised duo album with Werner). As only her seventh album in a thirty-year career, Cartas ao Vento stands as a rare but exquisite gem.

Villela’s summer/fall performance schedule kicked off with a sold-out show at Kuumbwa Jazz in Santa Cruz Mon 6/26. It also includes Monterey Jazz Festival, Sun 9/24; and SFJAZZ, San Francisco, Thurs-Sun 11/9-12. 

Gregory Hutchinson | "Da Bang"

The acclaimed drummer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Gregory Hutchinson has unveiled "New Dawn," the third preview from his highly anticipated debut solo album, 'Da Bang,' out September 29th. A captivating collaboration with Swedish and London-based jazz artist Liselotte Östblom, "New Dawn" is infused with infectious rhythms and airy jazz keys, where Östblom's soulful neo-soul vocals interweave seamlessly with Hutchinson's punchy drum production, creating a mesmerizing blend of melody and rhythm. Embodying personal growth and transformation, "New Dawn" encapsulates the exhilaration and determination of embracing a fresh start. “It’s a dawning of dreams / A new regime / The forming of a crown on my head / I’m moving on," as Östblom sings. With playful sensuality and unwavering resolve, the track invites listeners to embark on a journey of new beginnings and exciting horizons.

“New Dawn” follows the previously released offerings “Straight From The Heart" (Feat. Leona Berlin & Karriem Riggins) and “Blow My Mind/Let's Take It Back” (feat. Sy Smith, Javier Starks) from the upcoming album. Recorded by award-winning producer/drummer Karriem Riggins (J Dilla, Common, Robert Glasper), the 15-track collection “Da Bang” sees Hutchinson joined by an all-star lineup of unique collaborators, including such diverse friends and fellow artists as Riggins, Leona Berlin, PJ, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Vernon Reid, Christian Scott, Nicholas Payton, Kameron Corvet, Tim Smith, Sy Smith, Javier Starks, Samora, James Poyser, and more. 

One of the most highly regarded musicians of his generation, Gregory Hutchinson has been hailed for his work performing and recording with countless jazz greats including Betty Carter, Red Rodney, Roy Hargrove, Joshua Redman, Dianne Reeves, Lou Donaldson, Wynton Marsalis, John Scofield, Diana Krall, and Harry Connick Jr, to name just a few. The Brooklyn, NY-born, Rome, Italy-based artist grew up surrounded by music, from his late mother’s beloved soul and R&B to reggae via his percussionist father and the explosive sounds of classic hip-hop that filled the streets of NYC in the late 1970s and 1980s. 

Now, with 'Da Bang,' Hutchinson has taken those variegated styles and fused them into a one-of-a-kind blast of genre-busting Brooklyn energy, all with a deeply personal lyrical approach hewn from his own diaries and experiences. Though soundly rooted in the jazz tradition, the album sees Hutchinson approaching his strikingly powerful songcraft with the versatility, dynamism, and imagination he has long been known for, coloring original compositions like the fiery statement of purpose, “We Got Drumz (Feat. Javier Starks & Soweto Kinch” and the album-closing “Fly Away (Feat. Nicholas Payton)” with his mastery of timing, natural feel, and staggering innovation.

“Everyone knows me for playing jazz but I grew up around the corner from Biggie,” Hutchinson says. “That's my era. I was thinking, how are we going to bring younger people to jazz music now that they are gravitating away from it. I was going through a divorce, going through different trials in life, and I decided to just do what I love to do. To just speak to the way I want to speak. Making music is, I think, supposed to be kind of like telling your life story. I'm not trying to portray anything that I'm not in the music. I just understand what makes people move and how to do that. It’s like, this is where we are.”

Bobby Zankel | "A Change Of Destiny"

Philadelphia alto saxophonist and composer Bobby Zankel explores a darker side of his longtime city’s history with A Change of Destiny, set for a September 22 release on Mahakala Records. The album is a distillation of music that Zankel wrote for a dance piece, The Spirits Break to Freedom, in the 2010s, and was recorded with Zankel’s Wonderful Sound 8 (a byproduct of his Warriors of the Wonderful Sound Big Band), featuring Philadelphia jazz greats drummer Pheeroan AkLaff, trombonist Robin Eubanks, vocalist Ruth Naomi Floyd, violinist Diane Monroe, alto saxophonist Jaleel Shaw, bassist Lee Smith, and pianist Sumi Tonooka.

A six-section suite of “resistance, revolution, and renewal,” according to its composer, A Change of Destiny is a response to the 2007 excavation of slave quarters on the site of the President’s House—George Washington’s residence in Philadelphia. The opening track “Destiny,” based on a Jymie Merritt–inspired cross rhythm, asks the question “Why have we been brought here?” and proclaims, “My destiny belongs to me!”

“Spirits Break to Freedom” is an epic journey from rainforest hocket rhythms to Afrobeat groove, 21st-century urban angularity, and freedom. “Naming Names” is an Ornette Coleman–influenced praise song in which vocalist Ruth Naomi Floyd intones the names of “our nation’s nine founding mothers and fathers whose forced labor made the President’s House functional.” The gospel ecstasy of “Ring Shouting” and the Billie Jean groove of “Rituals of Resistance” express two cultural revolutionary modes of joyful freedom, while “To Be a Human Being,” constructed over a 14-beat rhythmic mode, features the powerful self-declaratory words of Malcolm X.

If the octet here is a spin-off of Zankel’s large ensemble, it is also a new band unto itself. Similarly, while A Change of Destiny is related to the prior work Spirits Break to Freedom, it is also a stand-alone project, with fresh arrangements written especially for the Wonderful Sound 8. “It becomes easy to write when I know who I’m writing for,” says Zankel. “And having those players provides such a rich palette. I like a big band, but I prefer a midsize unit because you can hear everything.” On A Change of Destiny, there is indeed much to hear.

Bobby Zankel was born December 21, 1949 in Brooklyn. He first began attracting national attention in 1971, while at the University of Wisconsin as a member of Cecil Taylor’s Unit Core Ensemble and simultaneously working with drummer George Brown’s quartet with organist Melvin Rhyne.

In the early to mid-1970s, Zankel’s underground reputation grew on the New York loft scene, where he performed with the likes of William Parker and Ray Anderson while continuing his apprenticeship with Taylor. In 1975, Zankel moved to Philadelphia to raise his family and expand his artistic vision without heed to commercialism or the trends of the times. He has performed and recorded with such diverse masters as Johnny Coles, Odean Pope, Ralph Peterson, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Oliver Lake, and Marilyn Crispell, among others. Zankel continued working occasionally with Taylor for the remainder of the pianist’s life.

The saxophonist became a devoted son to his adopted city, working with several generations of the finest of Philadelphia jazz musicians. In 2001, Zankel founded the jazz advocacy and education nonprofit Warriors of the Wonderful Sound, Inc., and established an eponymous 18-piece big band as its centerpiece. Composers from Muhal Richard Abrams to Rudresh Mahanthappa have written for the ensemble. All of this creative work has been balanced with 32 years of teaching in the Pennsylvania prisons.

The Bobby Zankel Wonderful Sound 8 will perform at Mt. Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church, 15 Mt. Morris Park (at 122nd Street), NYC, on Friday 10/20, a performance curated by Craig Harris; and at the Painted Bride Art Center, 5230 Market Street, Philadelphia, on Saturday 10/21. 

Ian Shaw | "Greek Street Friday"

Multi-award-winning singer-songwriter Ian Shaw announces the release of his new studio album ‘Greek Street Friday’ and shares the first single ‘To Be Held’ with its accompanying video. The album will be released on CD and digital on September 1st via Ian’s own label Silent Wish Records, with the vinyl to follow in the autumn.

Soulful, funky and bold, these new songs draw inspiration from Shaw’s early musical and lyrical influences — Bowie, Steely Dan, Al Jarreau, early Elton John, Billy Joel – to create 11 autobiographical portraits of people and places: 1980s London, New York, loving and losing, basement bars, poets, friendships, lovers, near-escapes and far-away places.

‘Greek Street Friday’ will see its inaugural performances at four shows over two days on Thursday 31st August and Friday 1st September 2023, at Ronnie Scott’s in London.

As an “utterly brilliant” (Time Out) mainstay of the British music and comedy circuit, Ian has never been one to conceal an often-outspoken view on injustice and equality and details his personal experiences for audiences to share. ‘Greek Street Friday’ sees him do so with typical poetic frankness, as well as pay homage to friends and icons, and muse on our place in a complicated world. Whilst the album’s main focus is a collection of partially autobiographical vignettes, Ian has also chosen to include a new take on a favourite song from one of his musical idols, ‘Blinded By The Hunt’ by Rickie Lee Jones.

The first single, ‘To Be Held,’ has its title inspired by a Truman Capote interview with Dick Cavett, and which later expands into a beautiful tribute to lost friends, the power of connections, imperfections and navigating the strangeness and beauty of being alive on what Ian describes as “this beaten-up planet of ours”.

Expanding his jazz foundations to the realms of blues-rock and pop, ‘Greek Street Friday’ brings to mind shades of classic 21st century songwriters such as Little Feat, Steely Dan, Randy Newman, and of course Rickie Lee Jones. Co-written and produced with Jamie Safir (Kylie, Birdy, Will Young), and recorded at Livingston and Cowshed Studios, the album features an all-star band of session players, including drummer Ian Thomas (George Michael, Van Morrison, Céline Dion), guitarist David Preston (Melody Gardot, Curtis Stigers) and saxophonist Iain Ballamy (Everything But The Girl, Hermeto Pascoal, Loose Tubes).

Ian’s “smart and soulful show” featuring “the quirks and character tics of everyday living” (The Guardian) will be out in full force at one of London’s most iconic venues on August 31st and September 1st. Taking Ronnie Scott’s stage for a series of matinee and evening performances, these unmissable shows will be packed with witty anecdotes and stories, as Ian performs the record with his full band of seasoned musicians.

Kavita Shah | "Cape Verdean Blues"

Award-winning vocalist, composer, and educator Kavita Shah’s latest album, Cape Verdean Blues, a cul- mination of a diasporic quest to find a spiritual home, will be released September 15, 2023 on the new global music label Folkalist Records. The carefully curated album of traditional Cape Verdean mornas and co- ladeiras is also a tribute to the charismatic and unapologetically individual Cape Verdean vocalist Cesária Évora, and a love letter to her breathtaking archipelago and its welcoming people. Resonating with the music’s language of loss, Shah, herself the daughter of immigrants, spent several years conducting ethno- graphic research on the island of São Vicente. On Cape Verdean Blues, Shah’s collaboration with Évora’s longtime bandmates (including master guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Bau), and her bold self-possession have enabled her to achieve a rare feat: creating a world music album that feels like home.

At the heart of the 12-song album is “sodade,” an idiomatic word that doesn’t have a strict English definition, but connotes a melancholy sense of transience that permeates Cape Verde, its music, and its free-spirited island population. “In this paradise in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, I found a sense of home that has eluded me for much of my 37 years,” Shah says. She continues: “When I look back, I realize that upon hear- ing Cesária’s voice nearly a decade ago, she was summoning me down a path I must continue walking in search of sodade.”

Shah is a global citizen and cultural interlocutor whose work involves deep engagement with the jazz tradi- tion, while also addressing and advancing its global sensibilities. She is a lifelong New Yorker of Indian origin hailed for possessing an “amazing dexterity for musical languages” (NPR). Shah speaks 9 languages—in- cluding Portuguese and Cape Verdean Kriol—and incorporates ethnographic research into her original mu- sic. She has researched traditional music practices in Brazil, West Africa, East Africa, Turkey, and India. To support her work, Shah has earned grants from the Jerome Foundation, Chamber Music America, Asian Cultural Council, and New Music USA. Shah holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Harvard, and a Master’s in Jazz Voice from Manhattan School of Music.

To date, Shah’s projects include Visions (2014), co-produced by Lionel Loueke; Folk Songs of Naboréa, which premiered at the Park Avenue Armory in 2017; and Interplay in duo with François Moutin, which was nominated in 2018 for France’s Victoires de la Musique for Jazz Album of the Year. Shah regularly performs her music at major concert halls, festivals, and clubs on six continents.

Shah first heard the voice of Cesária Évora as a 20-year-old college student in Cambridge, MA. Her father had died unexpectedly two years earlier, and three of her four grandparents had passed since his death. As an only child, these losses left her with very few tangible ties to her native culture. Months later, she was conducting ethnomusicology research on Afro-Brazilian music in Salvador, Brazil, where she began to see how marginalized people looked outside their environment to find connection. “They found solidarity with Black people’s plight during the American civil rights movement and liberation movements across the African continent,” Shah says. “As a member of a diaspora, I related to that. I began to seek to elevate my con- sciousness through connecting outside my immediate surroundings.”

While living in Brazil, Shah had the opportunity to hear Cesária perform live. #What struck me about her was that she was wholly herself. She was barefoot, smoking, drinking, she wasn!t overly smiling or entertaining— she was just delivering the songs,” Shah recalls. “As a person of color, to see a black woman whose main power was her authenticity was transformative. She changed my life.”

Shah ended up visiting Cape Verde in 2016—after Cesária’s death—and it would be a trip brimming with serendipitous events. Through mystical coincidence, she ended up befriending Cesária’s musical director and guitarist Bau. The pair instantly discovered an intuitive musical chemistry, and informal jam sessions led to live performances. In 2018, Shah returned to Cape Verde after being awarded a grant by the Jerome Foundation to formally research and study its music and culture. During this time, she deepened her friend- ship with Cape Verde’s legendary classical composer Vasco Martins who penned the Cape Verdean Blues compositions “Um Porta Aberte” and “Situações Triangulares.”

Cape Verdean Blues organically grew organically out of Shah and Bau’s casual studio sessions originally intended to document their repertoire. The album features members of Cesária’s band, including percussion- ist Miroca Paris, and Cesária’s mentee and acclaimed vocalist Fantcha. It was recorded in Mindelo, Lisbon, and New York, and includes traditional repertoire in Cape Verdean Kriol, a newly-penned original written to lyrics by another legend, Morgadinho, a Brazilian classic, and an Indian folk song in Gujarati, Shah’s moth- er tongue.

Shah painstakingly studied the repertoire’s distinctive phrasing, but she also invigorates the program of songs with fresh individuality. Trained as a jazz singer, Shah elegantly expands the songs with sensual vocal improvisations. She weaves in vocal textures, and mouth percussion creating lush, enchanting soundscapes with almost minimal orchestration. On the album’s title track— written by hard bop jazz pianist and composer Horace Silver (“Cape Verdean Blues”), whose dad was born on Cape Verde—she vocalizes the song’s instrumental parts.

Freddie Bryant | "Upper West Side Love Story"

With a beautiful new music video (combining nostalgic images with modern-day in-studio performance footage,) an expansive interview feature and more media coverage on the way, composer, lyricist and guitarist Freddie Bryant continues to lay the groundwork for the recent release of his ambitious double CD ‘Upper West Side Love Story’.

Inspired by Bryant’s first-hand experiences as he witnessed the the gentrification of the Upper West Side, Bryant has crafted a confident and profound work of art - deep, textured and resonant - written from the perspective of someone, from childhood to adulthood, navigating the simple joys, increasing confusion, and, ultimately, the simmering resentments of growing up in a neighborhood that is changing before his very eyes.

At times a wistful valentine and at others a melancholy break-up note, the song cycle is ultimately a complicated love letter to the home Bryant lived in for fifty-four years, from birth until 2019, when he moved to the Bronx.

Bryant’s new single, ‘His Bed is a Box’, out today, is a haiku which reflects on the sad reality of homelessness. In his song notes, Bryant comments: The dark side…coincided with a crisis of homelessness which we seem to still be dealing with amongst the new and incomprehensible wealth that defines gentrification today. It’s dedicated to our neighbors that we see, or try not to, as we go about our daily life.

How did it come into being? Thank you! There were a few stages: 2019 a Grant from Chamber Music America, 2020-2021 writing the lyrics and music during the Covid quarantine, 2021-2022 rehearsing and premiering the music in concerts in the Northeast, finishing the studio recording and 2023 finally releasing the music to the world! In terms of the idea and concept the impetus came from being forced out of our family apartment we lived in for 54 years. It was a struggle that got me thinking about my life, family, friends, upbringing, playgrounds, music and then also the bigger picture of the history and culture of the neighborhood and how it has changed over the years. For me the creative process in music, with lyrics and without, always comes from feelings and emotion and this project had so much to inspire me. I started with the words and three months later after the lyrics were finished came the music – that took a year. I let it grow organically and in the end it took shape in a 16 song suite in two parts – a double CD with 92 minutes of music, like a show, musical or mini-opera. What I’m really happy about is that it works as individual songs in any order and it can also take you through an engaging story from start to finish.

Musicians Featured:

• Carla Cook - vocals
• Regina Carter - violin
• Gwen Laster - viola
• Akua Dixon - cello
• Steve Wilson - alto/soprano sax and alto/concert flutes
• Donny McCaslin - tenor/soprano sax
• John Benitez - bass
• Alvester Garnett - drums
• Freddie Bryant - guitars and vocals

New Music Releases from Buddy Rich, George Freeman, Tyshawn Sorey and Jeff Bradshaw

Buddy Rich’s “Birdland” LP To Be Re-Released On Limited Edition Translucent Red Vinyl 

Lightyear Entertainment and Lobitos Creek Ranch, in association with Scabeba Entertainment and the Buddy Rich Estate, have announced the release of a special limited-edition version of the best-selling live album “Birdland” featuring Buddy Rich and his Killer Force Band at the peak of their performing years. The new release will be a 180-gram audiophile translucent red vinyl collector’s edition. It will be released July 21 through Virgin/Universal Music Group and will temporarily replace the original black vinyl version, which has sold out after multiple re-pressings. The “Birdland” album was seen in the Academy Award winning film “Whiplash,” in the hands of the young star Miles Teller, who played an extraordinary drummer who idolizes Buddy Rich. Cathy Rich, CEO of Scabeba Entertainment and Buddy’s daughter, was a consultant on the “Whiplash” film. She is currently on tour with her Buddy Rich Big Band Machine, featuring drummer Gregg Potter.  The original black vinyl version of “Birdland” was released in 2015.

George Freeman – Good Life

Guitarist George Freeman has given his music to the world for many decades – a fantastic live player who still makes magic on the Chicago scene, and a recording artist who's gotten the chance to cut plenty of records over the years, but rarely in a top-shelf setting like this! The lineup is an all-star one – with Joey DeFrancesco on organ, Christian McBride on bass, and either Carl Allen or Lewis Nash on drums – great players, but who also have the maturity to really give George the space to open up and do his thing – especially important now that, in his later years, Freeman is less of a sonic monster than he was in the 70s, yet maybe even more of a sensitive soloist overall. Titles include a remake of his classic "Lowe Groovin" – plus "Mr D", "Up & Down", "The Good Life", and "Sister Tankersley". Dusty Groove

Tyshawn Sorey – Continuing

A really moody album from drummer Tyshawn Sorey – one that features a straightish jazz approach, but on really long songs that take a form that's all their own! The set's a trio date – recorded with Aaron Diehl on piano and Matt Brewer on bass – but the music is hardly standard piano trio fare, as there's a sense of pacing and spacing that really gives the record a unique vibe – something that's maybe not that much of a surprise, given how unique Sorey's music can be! Titles include "Reincarnation Blues", "Angel Eyes", "Seleritus", and a great reading of "In What Direction Are You Headed" – which was penned by Harold Mabern, and initially done on Lee Morgan's last album. Dusty Groove

Jeff Bradshaw – 20

One of the most soul-based records we've ever heard from trombonist Jeff Bradshaw, and one of the best as well – a rock-solid set that really draws on all his many years of making music, and one that's put together with that effortless blend of jazz and soul that makes Bradshaw so unique! At some level, it's almost as if Jeff has perfectly adopted the mantle of jazzy soul from Wayne Henderson during that late 70s moment when Henderson was both working in The Crusaders and doing so much production work as well. But at another, Jeff's a clearly contemporary artist, and really speaks strongly to the best aspect of the neo soul scene – enforced here on collaborations with Eric Roberson, Raheem DeVaughn, Liz Vaughn, Mike Burton, and others. Titles include "How You Gonna Act Like That", "Make Some Time", "Carrie's Bread Pudding", "Young Broke & Brave", "Don't Wanna Wait", "The Maintenance Man", "Destiny", and "Dubai Voices". Dusty Groove

Hilario Durán and His Latin Jazz Big Band Presents Cry Me A River

Hilario Durán brings the full scope of his artistry, the depth of knowledge of musical genres in the perfect storm of big artistry on Cry Me A River. The nine works on this recording are born of Durán’s Afro-Caribbean cultural topography but are also informed by his gifts for bending tradition and infusing his arrangements with unfettered improvisation.

Through the course of the album the Grammy-nominated and Juno Award-winning Durán actively throws overboard melodic, harmonic, and structural hooks that have become expressively blunted through overuse, building big band charts that bloom in color and texture and atmospheric beauty.

“I have waited almost twenty years to record another big band album,” Durán says. “But there was plenty of preparation for this moment,” Durán reveals. He refers to the four radio broadcasts of his compositions and arrangements with the great WDR Big Band in Koln, Germany. “It was great to showcase my music and to ‘workshop’ some new arrangements... aspects of the craft I learned working with the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna in Habana which I inherited from Chucho Valdés… So much to be grateful for the gift of music… it seemed that the time is right for this new album, Cry Me A River,” Durán muses.

Durán integrates a myriad of genres into his singular style on the album – traversing innovations that have made his music uniquely breathtaking. He points to "Claudia," a song he arranged while he was touring as musical director with Valdés, and features Paquito D’Rivera on alto saxophone, as Dizzy Gillespie’s "Night in Tunisia." "Fantasia Impromptu" is a kind of jazz-meets classical, via Brazil and Cuba, featuring D’Rivera on clarinet. “It is our way of honoring the classics – in this case, Chopin,” Durán says.

Of the title song, "Cry Me A River" Durán says: “Elizabeth Rodríguez is just fantastic on violin. In her solo she plays deep in the Cuban tradition and follows that with an incredible improvisation!” he says. “'Pacá por Juanito' is a tribute to Juanito Márquez,” Durán explains, “He was one of the greatest musicians of Cuba the conductor of Orquesta de la Radio y Televisión in the '60s. I learned how to arrange for big band, by studying his scores for that orchestra.” Another original is "Mambo y Tumbao." “Here, I highlight both traditional forms (mambo) and the revolutionary innovators of Cuban music – the great Bebo Valdés, who invented the ‘batanga’ rhythm, and the influential bandleader Pérez Prado. And of course, 'I Remember Mingus' is a tribute to Charles Mingus, the great composer, bassist, and bandleader. Check out Marc Rogers’ solo here,” Durán says enthusiastically.

One name missing from the performance credits is Yailin Durán, the bandleader’s daughter. “She taught me all about hand-movements… everything I know about conducting,” Durán explains. “I owe the deepest gratitude to her for all my big band music… for Cry Me A River.”

Jason Jackson | "All In"

It’s been a whirlwind from the U.S. Navy to the Billboard top twenty for R&B/jazz saxophonist Jason Jackson. When it comes to music, he’s been all in from the go, inspiring the title of his first album, “All In,” which was released last fall. The second single from the set produced by twelve-time Billboard chart-topper Adam Hawley, “Through The Night,” began collecting playlist adds on Monday.  

Jackson spent ten years performing all over the world as a member of the Navy’s band, playing prestigious venues in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Australia and Japan. Just prior to completing his service in 2021, he reached out to Hawley, sending him a demo. Upon hearing it, Hawley agreed to produce and write with the sax player who had opened for Brian McKnight, Morris Day and the Time, KC and the Sunshine Band, and Michael McDonald while he was a teenager under the tutelage of longtime James Brown saxophonist Leroy Harper Jr.

Hawley produced Jackson’s 2021 debut EP, “Movin’ On,” that showcased the saxman alongside prominent duet partners Julian Vaughn and Tim Bowman. Last November, Jackson realized a dream when he released his first full-length album, “All In.” “Through The Night” is the latest offering from the Hawley-produced collection.

A soulful midtempo groove written by Jackson, Hawley and keyboardist Caleb Middleton, “Through The Night” is a sophisticated urban-jazz track lit by Jackson’s yearning saxes that portray a fiery sense of urgency and desire.

“When Adam and I set out to write ‘Through The Night,’ we were looking to create something with a sultry R&B groove that would really help the tone of the sax melodies shine. Imagine sitting outside, perhaps by a fire or on the beach, on a warm but crisp summer night. You’ve got a glass of wine in your hand and the love of your life sitting beside you. What would be the perfect soundtrack for that night? How could we put into music what you were feeling in that moment as well as the possibilities of the moments to come? That’s a snapshot of the vibe we were trying to capture,” said Jackson, a Wilmington, NC native who now calls Chesapeake, VA home.   

“Through The Night” follows “Workin’ It Out,” the first single from “All In” featuring keyboardist Gino Rosaria that hit Billboard/Mediabase’s top forty. Other noteworthy musicians who play alongside Jackson on the album are Jonathan Fritzén, Chieli Minucci and Mr. Talkbox. However, the sentimental favorite is a special guest appearance by six-time Grammy nominated saxophonist Eric Marienthal, one of Jackson’s mentors.

“I studied with Eric for many years before making my own records. It was so cool to finally get to collaborate with him on ‘On The Move,’ one of the songs from the ‘All In’ project. It was a really cool student-teacher moment,” shared Jackson who is excited about what he’s accomplished in two short years since transitioning from military life to life as a civilian musician. 

“My last month in the Navy was May of 2021. I got out of the military and around two months later, I was breaking into the top twenty on the Billboard chart with the single ‘All The Way’ featuring Julian Vaughn, which came out a month before I left the Navy. Pretty cool transition. No looking back since then!”

BT ALC Band - Hearing The Truth

It’s a powerful sight seldom seen on stage anymore and the sound is larger than life. Thirteen horn players and a five-piece rhythm section fill up the bandstand when BT ALC Big Band takes the stage. Stirring up a soul-powered force of get-down-tonight funk, improvisational jazz, deep-fried R&B grooves and a splash of hip-hop, the mighty and muscular outfit rips through their meticulous charts with passion and precision. Capturing that awesome firepower, mesmerizing magic and imaginative vision on their newly released fifth album, “Hearing The Truth,” is a triumphant accomplishment bolstered by a bevy of guest stars that illumined the nine-track set written, produced and arranged by band leaders Brian Thomas (trombone) and Alex Lee-Clark (trumpet).   

BT ALC Big Band’s lineup includes Grammy-winning trumpeter Bijon Watson, tenor saxophonist Mike Tucker (Arturo Sandoval), guitarist Jeffrey Lockhart (Berklee College of Music), and drummer Dean Johnston (Neighbor, Club D'elf).

It was a packed house when the Boston-based big band recently played their album release concert at SoundCheck Studios. The crowd was on their feet dancing the entire time to the retro soul sounds of vintage jazz-funk that mimicked the swinging 1940s, sounded like the 1970s, and felt like the present day by confronting the societal and political issues of today head on – from media misinformation to civil unrest, from national division to out-of-control inflation and rising homelessness.

“Hearing The Truth” was several years in the making. The inherent difficulties of gathering a big band during a pandemic should be obvious, what with social distancing mandates and all those wind instruments. Yet Thomas and Lee-Clark found a way to lay tracks, first remotely and then in small groups. Eventually, when restrictions eased and the full big band was permitted to get together to unleash their vim and vigor, guest stars were added to the tracks. G. Love (G. Love & Special Sauce), John Medeski (Medeski Martin & Wood), Alan Evans (Soulive), Adam Deitch (Lettuce), Karl Denson (The Rolling Stones, Lenny Kravitz, The Greyboy Allstars), two-time Grammy winner Eric Krasno, Nigel Hall (Lettuce) and Eric "Benny" Bloom guest on the project.

It is rare to hear a band capable of channeling James Brown & The J.B.’s, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Wu-Tang Clan on one record while infusing their own distinctive brand of jazz-funk. BT ALC Big Band pulls it off with aplomb on “Hearing The Truth.”

Cuts from the collection were quickly added to Spotify and radio playlists at home and abroad – from the BBC Radio 6 Music to Takoma, Maryland’s WOWD. Locally, the Boston Globe selected the track “What Will You Do?,” featuring Medeski’s dazzling keyboard artistry, as one of the 50 standout songs of 2023.   

BT ALC Big Band consistently maintains a busy concert calendar throughout New England. Audiences are treated to the full throttle, high-voltage experience, a taste of which can be gleaned from these videos from the “Hearing The Truth” album release concert for the songs “Egyptian Secrets” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFe7nzJ-iFo) and “That Sound” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gguIztzGSUc). At over eight minutes per cut, BT ALC Big Band takes full advantage of the opportunity to take their time, improvise and vibe off each other like a seasoned jam band. 

The truth is that there’s nothing like experiencing a big band live or on record. They’ll be back at SoundCheck Studios on September 29 to play a show with special guest trombonist Fred Wesley (James Brown, Parliament-Funkadelic) sitting in with the band. BT ALC Big Band reignites the grandeur of the artform, making it relevant in the technological age while fostering dynamic new possibilities for its evolution. If you’re ready to hear the truth, visit https://www.btalc.com for more information.

Mark Dresser - Tines Of Change

“I think of the bass as an orchestra,” writes bassist/composer Mark Dresser in the liner notes for his breathtaking new solo album, Tines of Change. If anything, this is an understatement in regards to the multi-dimensional sonic possibilities that Dresser conjures from the instrument. Through his singular combination of improvisational artistry and innovative adaptations, Dresser seems to discover orchestras within orchestras, crosscurrents of harmonic and multiphonic inspiration that engage in captivating and entrancingly beautiful dialogues.

Dresser has devoted a lifetime of research and performance to expanding the vocabulary of the bass, experimenting with extended techniques as well as with the physical properties of the instrument itself. Intensive though these studies have been, the results are always far from esoteric. He is renowned as one of creative music’s most expressive and inventive artists, whether in his expansive solo playing or in collaboration with such acclaimed collaborators as John Zorn, Henry Threadgill, Gerry Hemingway, Myra Melford, Joe Lovano, Dave Douglas, Tim Berne, Jane Ira Bloom, Dawn Upshaw, Ray Anderson, and countless others. His trio with “hyperpiano” player Denman Maroney and flutist Matthias Ziegler features three musicians who take similarly expansive approaches to their instruments. 

Released via Pyroclastic Records, Tines of Change features a dozen new explorations performed on unconventional four- and five-string basses crafted for Dresser by the Colorado-based bassist and luthier Kent McLagan. The album’s title refers to those basses’ most striking feature, an array of metal tines affixed to a secondary bridge. Like the strings these tines can be plucked or bowed, offering a variety of sounds from the percussive to the ethereal that adds sounds resembling both an African mbira and the stroked rods invented by composer Robert Erickson that Dresser employed on his 2017 release Modicana.

But that’s just one of the modifications that McLagan has made to translate Dresser’s sonic imaginings

into reality. In 2001 he embedded hand-wound individual magnetic pickups into the fingerboard of the bass, one set below the nut and the other at the octave. These additional pickups allow Dresser to sound up to three different pitches on each string, as well as amplify subtle tones and pitches that might otherwise go unheard in a live or collaborative setting.

“I heard micro-details of the instrument when I practiced alone, that got lost once I played with others,” Dresser explains. “That led to a lot of time thinking about how I could make these exciting soft sounds louder. As a bass player, you're relegated to what the realities of the acoustics allow. I realized that I could access the sonic details I was hearing by amplifying the bass differently.”

In large part that desire stemmed from the diverse influences that caught Dresser’s ear early in his development. Three figures stand out as hugely influential, each from a different point on the musical spectrum: Charles Mingus, whose expressive and fervent playing drew a prismatic rage of colors from the bass; Jimi Hendrix, whose ability to sculpt feedback encouraged Dresser to attempt to wield the most unpredictable aspects of his instrument; and Bertram Turetzky, the unparalleled experimental and new music solo bassist whose dynamic virtuosity, eclectic stylistic range and mentorship were crucial to Dresser early on.

“As a young musician, it was as if I had conflicting musical agendas,” Dresser recalls. “I set out to learn how to embrace and integrate them, and make them speak to one another as a single musical identity. Ultimately everything feeds into one another. It’s all music.”

“Prolotine,” the opening track on Tines of Change, is that effort in microcosm, a polyphonic dialogue between the disparate voices of Dresser’s bass. Arco moans give way to pizzicato hammering, shimmering overtones resound from deep, echoing scrapes. “Tynalogue” plunges into the sub-audio range of the tines, resonating below the range of hearing with percussive beats that are felt deep in the body. 

Each piece reveals new potentialities, profound riches unearthed from bold explorations – from the deep harmonic sonorities of “Harmonity” to the stark, crystalline elegance of “Melodine.” On “Gregoratyne” Dresser bows the tines, conjuring auroral patterns that evoke the preternatural singing of Gregorian monks. “Narratone” delves into guttural sounds that at times evoke the overtone-rich tradition of throat singing.

Though it arrives as the result of a significant period of reflection and invention, Tines of Change can’t be considered the “culmination” of Dresser’s solo explorations. As always, he continues to evolve and broaden his musical possibilities and compel open-eared listeners with previously unimagined, deeply felt invocations. 

“I realized that the bass has so many different and distinct voices,” he says. “I wanted to be able to access them and make them speak to one another. What I’m trying to do with all of these techniques is expand what I hear and feel. It's always about trying to find something that registers to me as musical and expressive and something that I want to listen to. I’m driven by the larger impulses of what is musical.”

Mark Dresser is a Grammy nominated, internationally renowned bass player, improviser, composer, and interdisciplinary collaborator. At the core of his music is an artistic obsession and commitment to expanding the sonic, musical, and expressive possibilities of the contrabass. He has recorded over 150 albums.

Raymond Scott Reimagined

Violinjazz Recordings, the label of acclaimed Grammy-nominated musician Jeremy Cohen, principal violinist and founder of Classical Crossover specialists Quartet San Francisco, has announced the release of ‘Raymond Scott Reimagined,’ an unprecedented new collaboration teaming Quartet San Francisco with accomplished Grammy/Emmy Award-winning composer, producer and arranger Gordon Goodwin and revered Grammy-winning a cappella group Take 6.

The 14-track collection, which includes Goodwin’s fresh arrangements of eight Scott classics, including mainstays “Powerhouse,” “Twilight in Turkey,” “Huckleberry Duck,” “The Quintette Goes to a Dance” and “In an 18th Century Drawing Room,” also introduces an entirely brand new composition, “Cutey and the Dragon,” which was crafted from an unfinished sketch Scott made in 1982 with Goodwin completing the composition in a manner that honors the great composer’s style and verve.

The album, available for pre-order at Violinjazz Recordings, also contains several interstitials of Raymond Scott’s voice, along with spoken word from audio historian Art Shifrin and Grammy-winning composer/conductor John Williams, excerpted from the documentary film, ‘Deconstructing Dad’ (directed by Raymond’s son, Stan Warnow), has been two years in the making but, in actuality, is a journey of nearly 50 years.

Cohen, the project’s Executive Producer, explains, “I grew up during an era when a simple turn of the television dial could bring one's world from Leonard Bernstein to animation and cartoons. Escape, creativity, and whimsy fueled my imagination where animation offered a humorous view of the world. As a kid studying classical violin, I was fascinated by Carl Stalling's incorporation of iconic classical music into the Warner Brothers cartoon soundtracks.”

“Raymond Scott, who never actually wrote music expressly for animation, was widely quoted in Merrie Melodies cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy and pals. Scott’s music sat right alongside the world's most recognizable classical music and became part of the soundtrack of my imagination. Scott's ‘Powerhouse’ brings musical shape to emotions.”

“In the 1990s, I was introduced to Raymond Scott with the album ‘The Music of Raymond Scott: Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights’ (Columbia, 1992, Irwin Chusid, producer) and let's just say that at that moment, the lantern was lit for a longstanding quest. Scott’s music found its way into arrangements for my group, Quartet San Francisco. We found boundless passion and energy for bringing this music to our audiences.”

While the basis of the album would be an alliance between Quartet San Francisco and Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, Jeremy and Gordon decided to engage a variety of ensembles to partner with the string quartet. These include pairing the string quartet with the big band on “Powerhouse,” “The Quintette Goes to a Dance,” “Twilight in Turkey,” and “Cutey and the Dragon,” incorporating a smaller ensemble of three horns on “Toy Trumpet” and a saxophone quintet on “Yesterday's Ice Cubes.” Two pianos enhanced “Huckleberry Duck” with the gorgeous vocals of Claude V. McKnight III, Mark Kibble, Joel Kibble, Dave Thomas, Alvin Chea and Khristian Dentley (of the group Take 6) joining on “In an 18th Century Drawing Room” and “Serenade.” The results are spellbinding.

Gordon Goodwin, co-producer, composer, arranger, and bandleader of The Big Phat Band, recalls his introduction to the iconic composer and approach to the project, “I took a deep dive into the music of Raymond Scott when I was working as a composer for Warner Brothers Animation. His music made quite an impact on me, so when Jeremy approached me about collaborating on a project featuring Scott’s music, the answer was an immediate and enthusiastic yes!”

“There is a long list of great Raymond Scott songs from which to pick, but we knew that were some tunes we had to include, such as ‘Powerhouse’ and ‘Toy Trumpet,’ but we were excited when the Raymond Scott Archives presented us with an unfinished lead sheet to a song called ‘Cutey and the Dragon’ that Scott was working on with, and for, his granddaughter Kathy. They asked if I wanted to arrange it, but as I examined the lead sheet, I realized that it really wasn’t a finished composition, but ­­rather a work in progress. So the Scott family gave me the honor of finishing the composition. This allows us to present something rare—a previously unheard composition by Raymond Scott.”

“Another highlight was “Twilight in Turkey,” which features Don Williams on timpani, along with Wade Culbreth on mallet percussion. This is special because Don’s father Johnny Williams was the drummer for the Raymond Scott Quintette. He is also the father of film composer John Williams. Don was able to allow us the use of his father’s cowbell and tom toms, so this track has a direct and unique connection to this music’s creator.”

“When we considered the vocal component for this music, there was really only one consideration. Take 6 has set the bar for a cappella singing over the past three decades, and I knew that their sound and versatility would make for a distinctive contribution.”

A distinctive collaboration is quite the understatement. Between the three main collaborators, QSF, Goodwin and Take 6, they’ve earned 60 Grammy nominations, scoring 12 wins. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the size and scope of Reimagined as two dozen best-in-class musicians amplify the sound and vision including Wayne Bergeron (trumpet), Ray Brinker (drums), Joey De Leon (percussion, congas, bongos), Justin Smith (guitar), Andy Waddell (guitar), Kevin Axt (bass), Sal Lozano (alto sax), Brett McDonald (alto sax, piccolo, clarinet), Brian Scanlon (tenor sax), Thomas Luer (tenor sax), Jay Mason (baritone sax), Daniel Fornero (trumpet), Aaron Janik (trumpet), Dan Savant (trumpet), Andrew Martin (trombone), Charlie Morillas (trombone), Francisco Torres (trombone), Craig Gosnell (bass trombone), Wade Culbreath (marimba, vibes, xylophone, cowbell), Meredith Clark (harp) and Don Williams (timpani, tom-toms) with Goodwin on piano and tenor sax and esteemed accompaniment by the other three virtuosos in Quartet San Francisco, Joseph Christianson (violin), Chad Kaltinger (viola) and Andrés Vera (cello).

Also in the mix is 7-time Grammy-winning engineer Leslie Ann Jones, who’s recognized for her work with Kronos Quartet, Chanticleer and Rosemary Clooney and whom Cohen’s worked with on previous projects including Pacific Premieres: New Works by California Composers. For Raymond Scott Reimagined, Jones recorded the joint sessions at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound, the famed studio on George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio, California. Additional recording took place at Dragonfly Creek Recording in Malibu and Lake Balboa Sound in Los Angeles.

Reimagining one of the all-time greats is a gargantuan undertaking but one ripe to cross all boundaries of time and space and one meant for the stage. To celebrate the release of the album, Quartet San Francisco, along with Gordon Goodwin and some of the key members of The Big Phat Band, including Wayne Bergeron on trumpet and Andrew Martin on trombone, will perform live at Yoshi’s in Oakland, California on Sunday, June 11. The 90-minute show will feature select cuts from the new album as well as favorites from each group’s repertoire. Tix on sale now.

Evenings At The Village Gate - John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy

In the summer of 1961, John Coltrane headlined at the celebrated music venue, the Village Gate. With a lineup of musicians that included McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, Elvin Jones, and the fiery playing of Eric Dolphy, Evenings at the Village Gate captures the creative and transformative spirit that sprang from the pairing of Coltrane and Dolphy, and the evolving short-lived quintet.

Evenings At The Village Gate: John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy will be released globally July 14 on Impulse! Records/UMe. The first track from the fabled performances, “Impressions,” is available now and you can listen to the track and pre-order the album here. You can also order a special edition orange vinyl variant here.

Recently discovered at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the recordings on this album—recorded by engineer Rich Alderson as part of a test of the club's new sound system—were seemingly lost, then found, and then disappeared again into the vast sound archives of the Library for the Performing Arts. The tapes’ circuitous route over several decades seemingly mirrors Coltrane's ongoing musical journey in August of 1961.

Recorded during Coltrane’s month-long Village Gate residency with his quintet (often with a revolving cast of musicians), the album consists of eighty minutes of never-before-heard music. It offers a glimpse into a powerful musical partnership that ended much too soon – Dolphy sadly passed away three years later and this recording is the only live recording of their legendary Village Gate performances. In addition to some well-known Coltrane material (“My Favorite Things,” “Impressions,” and “Greensleeves”), there is a breathtaking feature for Dolphy’s bass clarinet on “When Lights Are Low,” and the only known non-studio recording of Coltrane’s composition “Africa,” that includes bassist Art Davis.

Evenings at the Village Gate showcases the poignant, brief relationship between John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. Coltrane first met Dolphy in Los Angeles and, when Dolphy moved to New York in 1959, they renewed their friendship. They recognized many of the same analytic and driving qualities in each other. Both came of age at the height of bebop, both were deeply interested in harmony and emotive expression and both employed vocal-like effects and a wide emotional range in their playing. The combination of their signature sounds—Dolphy's distinctively bright, sharply-stated voice set against Coltrane's darker, slurred phrasing—is a unique and evocative feature of their historic run at the Village Gate.

Accompanying the release are essays from two participants from those evenings at the Village Gate, bassist Reggie Workman and recording engineer Rich Alderson. Additionally, historian Ashley Kahn and jazz luminaries Branford Marsalis and Lakecia Benjamin offer valuable and insightful essays on the recordings.