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For more than three decades as one of the most influential jazz musicians, Eric Reed has recorded close to 30 accomplished leader albums showcasing his virtuosic chops, intellectual clarity, unwavering will to swing, and ability to refract and coalesce a wide range of musical, spiritual, and personal influences into a single stream of consciousness. Perhaps the most personal of them all is “For Such a Time as This.” It is a powerful and uplifting program framed by the realities of global pandemic anxiety, persistent racism and racial injustice, and an acrimonious, fraught election season. By the end of June, Eric was ready and had assembled a gifted young quartet to record a set of recently penned originals, carefully chosen standard old chestnuts, and some restorative Gospel selections.
Multi-reedist Benn Clatworthy offers up “Bennie’s Lament,” his newest offering with his sextet System 6. A mainstay on the Los Angeles jazz scene since the mid-1980s, London-born Clatworthy has appeared on dozens of albums over the course of his 40+ year dynamic career. He has led various incarnations of his highly regarded group System 6 throughout the past ten years. The new disc is the second recording with the particular assemblage of some of Southern California’s finest instrumentalists.
Also this week, pianist George Kahn unveils his 10th album, “Dreamcatcher,” creating a late-night, smoky bourbon and ballad vibe for the disc;
the Sapporo, Japan, based Mercer Hassy Orchestra offers up a program of originals and jazz standards on “Sir Duke”;
and Japanese trumpeter and composer Takuya Kuroda marks the culmination of an evolving electric journey with “Fly Moon Die Soon.”