Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Pat Metheny has unveiled the latest chapter in his wildly prolific career, “Side-Eye NYC V1.IV,” a new setting featuring the 20-time Grammy winner accompanied by a handpicked and rotating cast of players featuring some of the most exciting and innovative new musicians on the New York scene. Recorded just before the pandemic at the Sony Music Hall in New York City, the disc deftly balances a mix of stunning new originals with inventive reworkings of some of Metheny’s most beloved compositions. He’s joined by keyboardist James Francies and drummer Marcus Gilmore.
In the summer of 1961, Count Basie and his orchestra played the iconic New York jazz club, Birdland, which Basie considered his musical home. The result was one of the best live recordings of a big band ever. Almost 60 years later, the Count Basie Orchestra, now under the direction of Scotty Barnhart and still performing all over the world, returned to Birdland to once again do a live recording. “Live at Birdland” captures the current band at its peak with its potent mix of seasoned veterans and emerging voices.
Also this week, “Symphony Hall Concert” is a previously unreleased live set from the Erroll Garner Trio from January 17, 1959 in Boston;
“…Dreaming in Lions…” from the Arturo O’Farrill Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble features music composed by Arturo in collaboration with the Malpaso Dance Company;
and guitarists Larry Carlton and Paul Brown join forces on “Soul Searchin’.”