Multi-Grammy nominated vocal artist Nnenna Freelon is back, delivering her eleventh album after a decade-long hiatus from the studio. With “Time Traveler,” she offers a celebration of love and a prayer of hope for those living with loss. The sessions for the disc stretched over two years, from 2018-2020, coinciding with the loss of Freelon’s soulmate and husband of forty years, Phil Freelon, to ALS. She draws from her and Phil’s shared love of jazz and rhythm & blues, including a medley of Marvin Gaye classics, several standards and her self-penned title song.
“Transmigration” is the sophomore album from Lebanese bassist and composer Makram Aboul Hosn, recorded in Beirut just three days after the port explosion which was watched from around the world. In fact, the dramatic events of August 2020 were just one of a series of catastrophes to hit that country, following economic crash, mass protests and, of course, Covid-19. Originally scheduled to take place at a European studio with an international line-up, Makram decided instead to invest in the local Beirut scene, bringing together some of the city’s leading jazz musicians along with a handful of guests, including U.S. vibraphonist Joe Locke.
Also this week, internationally renowned Cuban pianist Miguel de Armas, who moved to Canada in 2011 and formed his quartet in 2013, offers up a fusion of Afro Cuban music with pop, Latin jazz, calypso and classical influences on “Continuous”;
guitarist Adam Moezinia and his trio are rooted in the jazz tradition but venture beyond to incorporate influences of folk and world music into their sound on “Folk Element Trio”;
and Chicago-based saxophonist Shawn Maxwell offers up a program of tunes written during the pandemic and recorded remotely for “Expectation & Experience.”