Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Jazz duo recordings can provide an exceedingly wide range of musical expression including, but not limited to, profundity, humor, tenderness, introspection and exuberance. This type of mercurial interplay is on full display on “Montreal Memories,” a previously unreleased live set from saxophonist Frank Morgan and pianist George Cables recorded at the Theatre Port-Royal in Montreal in 1989. The two played together frequently and their improvising was imbued with almost telepathic communication. Cables’ large piano tone was the perfect accompaniment to Morgan’s slightly dry, Bird-like sound.
The Czech pianist and composer Emil Viklicky has made numerous visits over the years to Cedar Rapids and the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library. He was recorded in concert on one such visit in May of 2008 in a trio with Dennis McPartland and Steve Charlson, just a few weeks before the great flood inundated the Museum and the city. Emil returned to the Museum this past May, ten years to the day after the first recording, to once again perform in the now restored and relocated Museum, this time with his Grand Moravian Trio featuring Czech bassist Petr Dvorsky and veteran Chicago-based drummer Ernie Adams. The resulting disc, “Humoresque,” includes a mix of originals, jazz standards and traditional Moravian pieces.
Also this week, saxophonist Jorge Nila is joined by guitarist Dave Stryker in paying tribute to some of jazz’s tenor masters on “Tenor Time”.
Bassist and composer Gabriel Espinosa, who heads up the jazz program at Central College in Pella, is joined by singer Kim Nazarian of New York Voices on his latest project, “Nostalgias de Me Vida”.
Boston-based composer and band leader Ayn Inser
to, a protégé of Bob Brookmeyer, releases her Jazz Orchestra’s first new album in a decade, “Down a Rabbit Hole.”