Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Although he’s best 
known as the hard-driving, groove-oriented drummer for the pioneering rock group Living Colour, Will Calhoun has played in a staggering variety of styles and traditions over the course of his eclectic career. Straight-ahead jazz, fusion, traditional African percussion, funk, hip-hop and, of course hard rock—Calhoun has explored them all, and he traces the roots of all of them to one man: legendary drummer Elvin Jones. On “Celebrating Elvin Jones,” Calhoun plays tribute to his earliest and most profound influence with a stellar band of musicians, all of whom were impacted by Jones through their personal growth as a musician or their past working with him directly, including bassist Christian McBride, saxophonist Antoine Roney, trumpeter Keyon Harrold and keyboardist Jan Hammer.
Speaking of his new big band release, “All L.A. Band,” Bob Mintzer explains,” It was an incredible experience to revisit these tunes in the studio with L.A.’s finest, spanning a 40-year stretch of big band writing. In writing the music, I wasn’t thinking at all of what style of music was at hand, but rather how I would like to play, with whom, and how to formulate a sound of my own that was influenced by my musical environment coming up in New York City. Here is a cross section of tunes I’ve composed for big band that will take you on a musical journey through the broad terrain sometimes referred to as jazz.” Joining Mintzer on that journey is trumpeter Wayne Bergeron, trombonist Bob McChesney, baritone saxophonist and Iowa native Adam Schroeder, reedman Bob Sheppard, pianist Russ Ferrante, drummer Peter Erskine, guitarist Larry Koonse and others.
Also this week, pianist and composer Harold Lopez-Nussa becomes the first Cuba-based musician to release an album internationally since the lifting of many of the restrictions associated with the long-standing trade embargo with “El Viaje (The Journey)”.
San Francisco Bay-area guitarist and composer Ray Obiedo unveils his
eighth musical venture as a leader, “Latin Jazz Project Vol. 1”.
Drummer Steve Fidyk gathers together a powerful lineup of “Allied Forces” for his second tour of duty for Posi-Tone Records, including organist Brian Charette and saxophonist Doug Webb.