Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Pianist and composer Deanna Witkowski honors the First Lady of Jazz, Mary Lou Williams, on her lovingly conceived and radiantly realized seventh album, “Force of Nature.” Released along with Witkowski’s first book—a detailed and engaging biography of Williams—the disc caps off 20 years of immersive research into the life and compositional genius of the pioneering composer-arranger and harmonically intrepid pianist.
Although Ira Sullivan performed with jazz luminaries like Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and Art Blakey, his music is not as widely known among general audiences. He limited his touring performances and instead chose to focus on teaching at the esteemed Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, becoming one of the leading jazz educators in the U.S. Sullivan passed away in 2020, but his musical legacy lives on in a new recording project, “Ira The Tribute Album” by the Blue Road Records Band. The ensemble is made up of some of the sterling musicians who have made a home in South Florida, including one of Ira’s sons, guitarist Brev Sullivan, who brought his father’s complex charts to the recording sessions.
Also this week, the Chicago-based New Standard Quintet, led by saxophonist Ken Partyka, features seven original compositions on its second offering, “Another Time, Another Place”;
guitarist Nathan Borton celebrate his Midwest musical inspirations—particularly Grant Green and Wes Montgomery—on his debut recording, “Each Step”;
and singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sasha Dobson offers up her first vocal recording, “Girl Talk.”