Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Bruce Forma
n entered the 21st century as one of the strongest swinging bebop and mainstream jazz guitarists around. Since then, he has taken a confident virtuoso walkabout through other genres and formats, both adjacent to and distant from his earlier career. Now Forman gives us a strong trio playing inventive and energetic arrangements of original compositions and some favorites from the American songbook on his new disc, “The Book of Forman.” His trio features drummer Marvin ‘Smitty’ Smith, who has worked with great players like George Shearing, Ray Brown and Branford Marsalis. Bassist Alex Frank is in the early part of a career that finds him in high demand across jazz and other styles.
Raised in Buffalo, Dave Chamberlain began playing trombone at the age of ten, inspired by
watching his four cousins playing in a brass quintet on the Ed Sullivan Show. Since heading to New York, he has played with everyone from Jaki Byard and Sam Rivers to Mike Longo and Tito Puente. Chamberlain introduced his Band of Bones in 2011, an ensemble inspired by the great group led by J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding, with a hint of the Basie Band. Bill Watrous has said of the band, “I am completely blown away by the overall excellence of this ensemble,” and Conrad Herwig calls the band “a swinging, sliding, sliphorn celebration.” For their third CD, “Stomp,” Chamberlain has brought aboard harmonica master Hendrik Meurkens as special guest.
Also this week, Bob James, Harvey Mason, Nathan East and Chuck Loeb celebrate 
twenty five years of the band Fourplay with “Silver”; guitarist Gaitano Letizia jams with legendary drummer Mike Clark and the brilliant bassist Wilbur Krebs on “Froggy and the Toads”; and the 
Canadian electro jazz ensemble Four80East unveils their seventh CD, “Positraction.”