Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
For nearly fifty years, Eddie Daniels has continued to be one of the leading voices of modern jazz clarinet. Just as Buddy DeFranco made the transition from Benny Goodman to Charlie Parker, Daniels helped bring the clarinet from the post-bop era into the modern age. For his exciting new project, “Heart of Brazil,” Daniels focuses on the work of one of Brazil’s most important modern composers, Egberto Gismonti. Daniels’ old friend and producer George Klabin has been a fan of Gismonti for decades and persuaded the reedman to delve into his work, which embraces a wide world of sound, joining elements of Afro-Brazilian folklore to classical music to modern jazz and beyond.
The OKB Trio was born at a jam session that drummer Brian Woodruff ran at Blackbird’s in Astoria, Queens that gave him the privilege of playing with different musicians each week. In June of 2010 he brought pianist Oscar Perez and bassist Kuriko Tsugawa and himself together for the first time and the chemistry was immediate. Woodruff and Perez talked about the difficulties they experienced in featuring their own playing while leading larger groups that play elaborately arranged originals, so they decided OKB would play simpler material so they could focus on the groove and expressing themselves more freely on their instruments. As Woodruff proudly boasts, “We always keep the ‘ing’ in swing.” Hence the title of their new disc, “The Ing…”
Also this week, pianist Brad Mehldau unveils “Seymour Reads the Constitution,” a new trio recording with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard.
Las Vegas-based pianist Mike Jones is joined by magician and comedian Penn Jillette, who also happens to be a fine jazz bassist, for the duo CD, “The Show Before the Show,” recorded live at the Penn & Teller Theater in Vegas.
Jazz veterans Mark Sherman on vibes and drummer Mike Clark are joined by bassist Felix Patorius and the young Boston-based saxophonist Chase Baird in the new band Venture on their debut release, “Life Cycle.”