Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
The drummer of choice for some of the biggest names in jazz for more than a quarter century, Joe Farnsworth’s acute musical vision was formed over years of peerless performances and recordings with artists like George Coleman, Benny Golson, Pharoah Sanders, Curtis Fuller and Diana Krall. He is something of a piano trio specialist as well with extensive work in the classic trios of Cedar Walton, McCoy Tyner, Hank Jones and Harold Mabern among others. Now Farnsworth delivers a career defining masterpiece of his own with “Time to Swing,” featuring pianist and NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron, consummate bassist Peter Washington, and virtuoso trumpeter and cultural icon Wynton Marsalis.
In 1996, trombonist Conrad Herwig unveiled the first installment in the popular “Latin Side of” series with the Grammy-nominated “The Latin Side of John Coltrane.” Since that time, other volumes have followed honoring Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter. “The Latin Side of Horace Silver” is the latest addition to the franchise, as Herwig has assembled an all-star band of his favorite colleagues including the Grammy-winning Dominican pianist Michel Camilo. As Downbeat magazine says, “Unsurprisingly, Silver’s wide-ranging jazz compositions prove to be fantastic fodder for Herwig and company, lending themselves well to stylistic reinterpretation and go-for-the-throat blowing.”
Also this week is a reunion of saxophonist Joshua Redman’s original acoustic quartet, showcasing his long-running creative friendship with pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade on “Round Again”;
singer Deborah Silver is joined by 10-time Grammy-winning band Asleep at the Wheel for a newly arranged array of Great American Songbook classics on “Glitter & Grits”;
and the Cuban charanga-jazz sound of the Grammy-nominated band Mongorama is showcased on their third release, “Mariposas Cantan.”