Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Bassist/composer and New Zealand native Matt Penman has spent much of the past decade developing and presenting music for the illustrious SFJazz Collective and the fantastic James Farm collective. That had left a gap between solo recordings that he felt it was time to abate. The ensemble that Penman assembled for “Good Question” features regular collaborators and friends, including saxophonist Mark Turner, pianist Aaron Parks and drummer Obed Calvaire. There are also guest appearances by guitarist Nir Felder, saxophonist Will Vinson and percussionist Rogerio Boccato. “The music on this recording is a series of questions I posed to my bandmates over two days,” Penman explains, “that I might get their input on a range of subjects that interest me…I wrote these tunes in the hopes of starting a dialogue that could provoke reactions, new angles and corollaries that were unforeseen, yet welcome.”
A powerhouse player who is equally conversant in jazz and funk, Indianapolis-based saxophonist Rob Dixon joins forces with a couple of heavyweights in 7-string guitar marvel Charlie Hunter and drumming legend Mike Clark on “Coast to Crossroads.” This slamming affair finds the tenorist knee-deep in Clark’s signature Oakland funk beats and irrepressible Texas shuffles alongside Hunter’s grooving, syncopated bass lines and distinctive organ-styled comping on his hybrid axe. Trombonist Ernest Stuart, a former member of the Brooklyn-based bhangra party band Red Baraat, provides close harmonies on the front line, playing Fred Wesley to Dixon’s Pee Wee Ellis. “The album is called ‘Coast to Crossroads’ because I’m based in Indiana, the Crossroads state, but I also work a lot on the West Coast and East Coast,” says Dixon, who hails from Atlanta but settled in Indy in 2003 after spending several years on the New York City jazz scene.
Also this week, two-time Grammy winning composer and saxophonist Ted Nash releases his first concert recording in over 25 years, “Live at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola”.
Veteran trumpeter John Bailey, who has had tenures with Ray Charles, Buddy Rich, and Ray Barretto, unveils his debut release as a leader, “In Real Time”.
Reed masters Ken Peplowski and Adrian Cunningham join together for a “Duologue,” with
rhythm provided by Renee Rosnes, Martin Wind and Matt Wilson.