Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
“Dave Brubeck Trio—Live from Vienna 1967” is a newly-discovered recording of the extraordinary evening when the iconic Dave Brubeck Quartet was forced to take the stage as a trio. On November 12th of that year, the Quartet was nearing the end of their last tour of Europe. They had played in Hamburg on the 10th, but saxophonist Paul Desmond got distracted after going out on the town for one last evening. When the rest of quartet went to the airport the next morning, Desmond was missing. He didn’t make the lobby call or the flight and the rest of the group traveled to Vienna without him. The disc marks the only recording of Brubeck, drummer Joe Morello and bassist Eugene Wright in a trio context.
Its name meaning “the lion spirit” in Shona, a language of Zimbabwe, MHONDORO has produced a powerful first album, full of joy and brimming with the force of life. Melding traditional Zimbabwean music and American jazz, “Heat Wave” celebrates the culmination of its diverse roots. Born during the pandemic, Israel saxophonist Idit Shner, Zimbabwean vocalist and percussionist John Mambira, and the Oregon-bred rhythm section of pianist Torrey Newhart, bassist Garrett Baxter and drummer Ken Mastrogiovanni, formed a “parent pod” to allow their children to attend virtual school together while the parents jammed in the living room.
Also this week, “The Diva Jazz Orchestra Swings Broadway,” with each arrangement commissioned to highlight the power, force and beauty of its ensemble sound, as well as to feature its fifteen exceptional soloists;
trombonist Matt Hall swings from start to finish, offering many twists and turns on his debut album, “I Hope to My Never”;
and bassist Mark Wade fuses the music of some his biggest influences, including Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul, with his own personal statements on the trio recording, “True Stories.”