Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Dr. Lon
nie Smith not only stands as the preeminent Hammond B-3 organist in jazz today, but at the age of 73 he’s still progressing as an artist, as witnessed by his remarkable new CD, “Evolution.” Teeming with his trademark accent marks, finesse caresses, bright sparks and jagged lines, the disc finds Smith in the company of his regular band and special guests Robert Glasper on piano and Joe Lovano on saxophones. The Doctor has also returned to Blue Note Records for the first time in 45 years, bringing him home to the label where he made a name for himself in the late 1960s, first as a sideman with saxophonist Lou Donaldson, and soon after as a leader with his own soul-jazz classics.
Poet William Blake wrote of seeing the “world in a grain of sand.”
Pianist and composer Ren
ee Rosnes takes a similarly intimate look at the wondrous sweep of the natural world on her new release, “Written in the Rocks.” A sense of discovery lies at the core of “The Galapagos Suite,” which makes up the bulk of the recording and is named for the island chain that inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution. From the origins of life in the ocean billions of years ago through the unearthing of the human ancestor “Lucy” to the recent discovery of one of the earliest animals to venture out of the sea and onto the land, the progress of evolution and our own ever-evolving understanding of it, serves to inspire Renee’s compositional mind. Saxophonist Steve Wilson, vibraphonist Steve Nelson, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Bill Stewart excavate the riches and mysteries from the pianist’s gorgeous, densely layered compositions.
Also this week, singer Stacey Kent joins up with one of Brazil’s most important 20th century musical figures, guitarist Roberto Menescal, and returns to the Great American Songbook for her new disc, “Tenderly”; pianist Fahir Atakoglu’s Turkish melodies smoothly blend into the context of a precision-balanced, high-powered jazz trio, featuring the great Cuban drummer Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez and renowned Canadian bass player Alain Caron, on “Live at Umbria Jazz”; and Cedar Rapids native Pat Daugherty’s band New York Electric Piano returns to the trio format on its sixth studio album, “Black Hole in One.”