Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Trinidad-born trumpeter Etienne Charles’ sixth full-length release, “San 
Jose Suite,” is an ambitious ten-part work exploring the histories, cultures and musical traditions of three Western settlements that share a name: San Jose, Costa Rica; San Jose, California; and Charles’ native St. Joseph, Trinidad, known as San Jose during the era of Spanish colonization. Charles traveled to each locale last year and spent time with townspeople, local historians and storytellers, observing and participating in rituals and jamming with local musicians in the indigenous and African Diaspora communities. The process illuminated shared pasts of colonial conquest in the Americas and the resilience of communities that have developed as a result.
In 2013, for th
e first time since 1980, Pat Metheny recorded with a band that highlighted tenor saxophone. The resulting Grammy-winning disc featured Chris Potter on reeds, longtime collaborator Antonio Sanchez on drums and Ben Williams on bass. The guitarist then took that same ensemble into new territory with the addition of his Orchestrion and a focus on more through-composed material and christened the ensemble the Pat Metheny Unity Group. The Group’s first record was released in 2014 and was named the best jazz album of the year in the DownBeat Readers Poll Awards. The Group went on a world tour of more than 150 cities, and then hunkered down in a small Manhattan theater to film new performances of music from their two discs and from the entirety of Metheny’s music catalog. The results were released on DVD last year, and now “The Unity Sessions” is new on CD.
Also this week, after living and working in Europe for the last decade, innovative saxophonist Chico Freeman makes his long-awaited return to the United States, celebrating with the release of his tour-de-force disc, “Spoken Into Existence”.
Pia
nist Lafayette Harris is joined by special guest Houston Person on “Hangin’ With the Big Boys”.
Pianist Rossano Sportiello, bassist Nick Parrott and drummer Ed Metz, Jr., team up for “Strictly Confidential.”