Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Bassist, composer and recording engineer Mike Pope taps into the music and musicians who represent several pivotal life phases over his striking 30-year career, as well as from broad positions in the great timeline of jazz, on his new disc, “The Parts You Keep.” From trumpeter Randy Brecker, a foundational figure in modern jazz, to saxophonist Roxy Coss, a brilliant leader representing the next guard, to the young guitarist Amaury Cabral who Pope heard at Berklee, they join Pope contemporaries, pianist Geoffrey Keezer and drummer Nate Smith, for a vivid set of originals, along with modern arrangements of music from Bird and Coltrane.
“City Suite” is an ambitious debut album by New York-based Korean composer and conductor Rin Seo, reflecting her impressions of New York City, where she chose to pursue her dreams. Influenced by diverse musical genres such as classical, jazz and Korean folk, her music seamlessly blends eclectic musical idioms, blurring the boundaries between genres with her distinctive musical voice. To bring her compositional vision to life, Seo carefully assembled the Rin Seo Collective, a 14-piece ensemble that combines the beauty of jazz and orchestral textures.
Also this week, Toronto-born saxophonist Pete Mills delivers a soulful, high-energy session with “For the Record,” a love letter to the timeless sound of the tenor saxophone and Hammond B3 organ quartet; guitarist Thom Rotella’s new release, “Right Time Left,” finds him spinning some soulful sophisticated jazz with special guests Ernie Watts, Jeremy Pelt and Tierney Sutton; and a Broadway powerhouse and jazz vocalist merges theatrical polish with deep jazz roots in honoring a jazz legend as “Syndee Winters Sings Lena Horne.”