Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Since moving from Chesapeake, Virginia to New York City in 2001, Nate Smith has helped reinvigorate the international jazz scene with his visceral style of drumming by playing with such esteemed leading lights as bassist Dave Holland, saxophonists Chris Potter and Ravi Coltrane, and singers Patricia Barber, Somi, and Jose James. The New York Times has described Smith as “a firecracker of a drummer.” His rising career reaches a new benchmark with the release of his bandleader debut, “Kinfolk: Postcards From Everywhere,” on which he fuses his original modern jazz compositions with R&B, pop, and hip-hop. The disc shows Smith leading a scintillating core ensemble, expanded on several cuts with the inclusion of Potter and Holland along with guitarists Lionel Loueke and Adam Rogers, and singer Gretchen Parlato.
In the years since the release of its debut disc in 2013, Philadelphia-based Ensemble Novo has refined a sound that is perfectly suited to its primary inspiration—music made in Brazil during the 1960 and early ‘70s. The band is the brainchild of writer and musician Tom Moon. Following the publication of his New York Times bestseller “1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die,” the saxophonist resumed active work as a musician and devoted specific attention to Brazilian music. He convinced several prominent members of Philly’s diverse music community, including vibraphonist Behn Gillece, to join in an exploration of samba and bossa nova. Their new CD, “Look to the Sky,” finds Ensemble Novo tackling several little-heard gems from the years just after the bossa nova craze—the fertile era known as MPB. This period in Brazilian music is notable for its endlessly lyrical melodies, coupled with a jazz-influenced sense of harmonic daring.
Also this week, guitarist John Abercrombie’s newest quartet project, “Up and Coming”.
Father-and-son saxophonists Don Aliquo and Don Aliquo, Jr., are joined by other noted Pittsburgh familial duos on “Fathers and Sons”.
Critically accla
imed trombonist Scott Whitfield shows his remarkable instinct and soul with a feast of Carl Saunders charts on “New Jazz Standards (Volume 2).”