Author's posts
New Music Monday for September 12, 2016
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. Even for a successful composer and arranger in Hollywood, Gordon Goodwin’s numbers are impressive: a 2006 Grammy Award for his work on the Pixar film “The Incredibles,” three Emmy Awards, thirteen Grammy nominations. Another impressive number: eighteen, as in the number of players in Goodwin’s …
New Music Monday for September 5, 2016
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 …
New Music Monday for August 29, 2016
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. Guitarist Nels Cline makes his Blue Note Records debut with “Lovers,” an expansive double CD that he had dreamed of making for over 25 years. Inspired by the likes of Bill Evans, Jim Hall, Gil Evans, Johnny Mandel, Henry Mancini and others, Cline finally realized his …
New Music Monday for August 22, 2016
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. There’s an old saying that a great jazz musician never plays a song the same way once. That could certainly be said of Jerry Bergonzi. He is an intellectual artist of uncompromising integrity and a bold, original composer. On his new disc, “Spotlight on Standards,” …
New Music Monday for August 15, 2016
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. Jazz is often portrayed as an art form defined by blazing young artists. It’s true that many jazz masters reach a mid-career plateau marked by small variations on a mature style. But there’s also a vanguard of players and composers who continue to refine and expand …
New Music Monday for August 8, 2016
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 It was people like Shaw, Hays and others who proved that it was only outdated preconceptions …
New Music Monday for August 1, 2016
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. With the release of “One for Marian,” New York-based pianist, composer and bandleader Roberta Piket shines a warm, loving light on an extraordinary but underappreciated aspect of the career of the beloved pianist and public radio host Marian McPartland–her vast body of work as a …
New Music Monday for July 25, 2016
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. With two Juno Awards, five Juno nominations, and a host of other international awards, Metalwood is arguably Canada’s most decorated jazz ensemble. Between 1997 and 2003, their name became synonymous with groove-oriented electric jazz, winning the band devoted fans around the world. Taking their cue from the …