Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Eric Olsen has c
rafted an outstanding career in both classical and jazz music, as a pianist and organist, composer, and conductor. He’s recorded seventeen stylistically varied albums, for classical solo, as accompanist with opera singer Kevin Maynor, as well as jazz recordings as a leader with his groups Urban Survival and Dyad. Eric’s latest CD, “Sea Changes,” combines classical melodies with jazz improvisation to create an exciting new art experience that transcends musical boundaries. The disc features his ReVision Quartet with Don Braden on reeds, Tim Horner on drums and Ratzo B. Harris on bass.
Showcasing more than 100 South Florida music legends, “Mamblue” is a tribute
to Miami, Florida, and its culture, music and musicians. This Afro-Cuban jazz orchestra extravaganza features all original compositions, arrangements, and orchestrations by Dr. Ed Calle, a four-time Grammy nominee, a prolific composer and arranger and one of the most recorded saxophonists in history. The music was specifically tailored for a large number of soloists and featured artists, including Arturo Sandoval, Brian Lynch, Sammy Figueroa, Federico Britos and Melton Mustafa.
Also this week, guitarist Greg Ruby and the Rhythm Runners deliver intoxicating Prohibition-era jazz with “Washington Hall Stomp,” evoking the sounds of
underground speakeasies, roadhouses and dance halls of the 1920s and ‘30s.
Saxophonist and composer Chris Merz, head of the jazz program at the University of Northern Iowa, debuts his newest ensemble,Christopher’s Very Happy Band, on “We Are Bathed in Sunlight”; the Tom Matta Big Band out of Chicago unv
eils “Standards,” featuring Mark Colby, Bob Lark 
and Tom Garling; and keyboardist Phil Turcio offers up a program of contemporary jazz on “Signals,” with Dave Weckl, Will Kennedy and Gary Meek.