Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
“By no means is jazz dead—that’s essentially why Louis Hayes and I formed this band.” So wrote Woody Shaw in 1976 in response to the much-heralded death of jazz. It was people like Shaw, Hays and others who proved that it was only outdated preconceptions of what jazz was which were dead and that jazz itself was alive and well. “The Tour: Volume One” is a real gem from Shaw’s greatest period—a previously unissued quintet session recorded in Germany with drummer Hayes, tenor man Junior Cook, Ronnie Matthews on piano and Stafford James on bass. Cook’s Trane-tinged flurries, Shaw’s boppish bursts, Mathews’ ever-intensifying solos and Hayes’ thunder-and lighting drumming create an energy and esprit very much in the Blakey tradition but without ever losing track of the identity or sight of their collective goal.
Damian Draghici was born in Romania in 1970 to a Gypsy family whose musical heritage dates back at least seven generations. In the mid-‘90s, he came to the States to study at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, placing great emphasis in introducing his favorite instrument, the pan flute, to the high ranks of contemporary American jazz. He then relocated to Los Angeles, where he started working with major Hollywood film composers, and highly acclaimed jazz musicians like Dave Weckl, Eddie Daniels, Vinnie Colaiuta, Oscar Castro Neves and others. For his new CD, “The American Dream,” Draghici is joined some of those same players along with Arturo Sandoval, Christ Botti, Michel Camilo, Luciana Souza and Frank Gambale. In a side note, back home in Bucharest, Damian has served as a senator in the Romanian Parliament and an adviser to the Prime Minister.
Also this week, saxophonist Eric Hargett makes his auspicious debut as a leader, in the company of B-3 ace Joey DeFrancesco and drummer Gerry Gibbs, on “Steppin’ Up”.
Veteran pianist, composer and Chicago native Greg Murphy releases his fourth outing as a leader, “Summer Breeze”.
Keyboardist Brian Charette pays homage to the great Hammond organists past and present on “Once & Future.”