Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Ever since Joe
Chambers made his recording debut on Freddie Hubbard’s classic LP, “Breaking Point,” he’s remained a nearly peerless jazz figure in terms of consummate musicianship. His career throughout the 1960s established Chambers as both a noteworthy hard-bop and avant-garde jazz drummer and as an intriguing composer, particularly through his partnership with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. He released his debut disc as a leader in 1974 for Muse Records, and reconnected with Muse’s Joe Fields in 2005 for Joe’s Savant label. On his new disc for Savant, “Landscapes,” Chambers reflects all of his well-honed talent as superb multi-instrumentalist, composer and bandleader in a paired-down trio setting with bassist Ira Coleman and pianist Rick Germanson.
Yellowjackets came to full buzzing flight in 1981 with its debut eponymous jazz-funk album, a fan-worthy introduction to a hybrid electric fusion of jazz and R&B. The band was an immediate yet lightly controversial hit at a time when the jazz pendulum was beginning to swing back in the acoustic direction. Now 35 years later, the band stretches its impressive lifeline by continuing to evolve artistically with its new disc, “Cohearence.” With founding member/keyboardist Russ Ferrante, longtime reeds player Bob Mintzer and drummer Will Kennedy alongside a brand new virtuoso electric bassist, Australian-born Dane Alderson, the band covers a wide range of jazz flavors. “There’s a lot of gratitude,” Ferrante says of the band’s 35th birthday. “It’s never been a given to us that we’d continue to be able to have the opportunity to write and record for that length of time. But you couldn’t have that in place unless you had a band of generous, giving musicians, none of whom have ever been ego’ed out.”
Also this week, veteran pianist Kenny Barron mixes both new and older compositions on “Book of Intuition,” recruiting his longstanding current trio mates Kiyoshi Kitagawa on bass and Johnathan Blake on drums.
Keyboardist Jason Miles is joined by Gerald Veasley, Ralph McDonald, Andy Snitzer and others for “To Grover With Love: Live in Japan”.
Vocalist Kevin 
Mahogany unveils a handful of new original songs on “The Vienna Affair,” the culmination of a long term love affair with the beautiful Austrian city.