Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Whether moving from Japan to the United States or navigating between the influences of jazz, soul, hip-hop, Afrobeat and electronica, trumpeter and composer Takuya Kuroda has never followed a straight path. On his fifth album, “Zigzagger,” Kuroda darts between those wide-ranging interests with a funky swagger and an intensely swinging vigor. Kuroda’s vision is realized with the help of his regular working band, most of them friends and collaborators for more than a decade since attending New York’s New School together. They include trombonist Corey King, bassist Rashaan Carter, drummer Adam Jackson, and the band’s newest member, keyboardist Takeshi Ohbayashi.
When Woody Herma
n launched his new band in 1947, its centerpiece was a saxophone section featuring three tenors and a baritone. The unusual configuration was designed to showcase a new cooler, swinging sax sound pioneered by tenor great Lester Young. Though Herman’s sax-centric Second Herd lasted only until 1950, it would help start a West Coast jazz revolution—one that tenor sax great Harry Allen and his All-Star New York Saxophone Band explore brilliantly on the new CD, “The Candy Men.” Harry’s colleagues—tenor saxophonists Grant Stewart and Eric Alexander and baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan—share his passion for the seductive sound of a sax section. Harry is quick to point out that he wasn’t trying to mimic any particular arranging style. He merely wanted to make the charts fun to play and hear.
Also this week, Norah Jones returns to the piano-driven sound she fashioned on earlier releases in her career on her sixth studio release, “Day Breaks”.
Vibraphonist Behn Gillece offers up another batch of original tunes on his second release as a leader, “Dare to Be”.
Fourplay guitarist Chuck Loeb unveils hi
s latest outing as a leader, “Unspoken,” featuring special guests Jeff Lorber, Eric Marienthal, Till Bronner and Everette Harp.