Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade have been three quarters of the extraordinary Wayne Shorter Quartet for more than a decade. They’ve also continued their individual careers as leaders of their own projects and groups. Now, on “Children of the Light,” they step forward as a trio for the first time. Daring and luminous, often an improbable mix of pointed, questioning turns and childlike joy, the music unfolds with mischievous unpredictability. “We can ‘comprovise’ (spontaneous composition) with dense harmonic and melodic forms, but we can also explore the beauty of a simple harmony,” says Perez. “And you can see the care each one of us put into the songs we brought in.”
Few singers have had the emotional depth and versatility of Abbey Lincoln. With a voice capable of evoking the joys and pains of life, she carved out a niche as a singer, songwriter and storyteller for over 40 years. She could wring a lyric for its emotional content while bringing a searing, dramatic quality to the musical line. Early in her career her rich, sustained contralto register—sometimes pierced by sudden impassioned cries—echoed the style of her idol Billie Holiday; in turn it inspired a generation of younger artists such as Cassandra Wilson. The 1970s and ‘80s found Lincoln recording only sporadically and there is precious little documentation of her art from this period, which makes the previously unreleased new CD, “Sophisticated Lady,” a rare treasure indeed. Recorded live at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco in 1980, the disc offers up a set of compelling performances with Lincoln in superb voice.
Also this week, “Jazz and Other Four Letter Words” is the witty, heartfelt, and swinging new release from Los Angeles vocalist and lyricist Mark Winkler; keyboardist Cesar Orozco and Kamarata Jazz add new ingredients to their mix of Venezuelan music, Cuban music and jazz on “No Limits for Tumbao,” with special guests Paquito D’Rivera, Yosvany Terry and Pedrito Martinez; and guitarist Brad Myers offers up the delightful blend of a tenor/guitar/vibes frontline to his long awaited debut, “Prime Numbers.”