Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Performing alongside a rhythm section cheekily dubbed the Italian Groovers, Lou Marini is as vibrant and swinging as ever at the age of 80, reminding us why he is one of the most revered figures on his instrument in the world. Across more than a half-century, Marini has established himself as a torchbearer of American music: serving in the original Saturday Night Live band and the Blue Brothers (dubbed Blue Lou by Dan Akroyd) and playing alongside some of the biggest names in pop music. In the jazz world, he’s beloved as a saxophonist, composer, and bandleader, with one of the deepest rolodexes around. His new CD, “Playtime,” grew out of Marini’s popular European tours of recent years.
American-born, UK-based singer and pianist Charlie Wood presents “Your Love is My Home,” a warm and deeply personal album shaped by a lifetime in music. Recorded between England and Copenhagen, the album reflects both Woods’ Memphis roots and his present-day life in Europe, blending jazz, soul, blues and Americana into a sound that feels both timeless and unmistakably his own. Featuring a carefully curated set of songs, Wood interprets material by Paul Simon, Sam Cooke, and John Lennon alongside standards and a few original compositions.
Also this week, “Feebles, Fables and Ferns” captures a rare one-time coming together of luminaries Mick Goodrick and Fred Hersch, both active in Boston at the time, recorded in Hersch’s studio in New York in 1988; pianist and composer Zen Zadravec, who’s performed and collaborated with a wide range of leading figures in the international jazz community, unveils a new quintet disc, “New Paradigm”; and flutist Ali Ryerson took advantage of the long stretches of time at home during the pandemic creating music for her new project, “The Ali Ryerson Quartet.”