Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
The Joel Frahm Trio is a new band featuring Joel on reeds, Dan Loomis on bass and Ernesto Cervini on drums. “The Bright Side” is their debut recording and is the culmination of a musical partnership that has developed over the course of many tours and recording sessions spanning the last decade. The trio was born at a masterclass at the University of Toronto, as an offshoot of Cervini’s band Turboprop. In the ensuing years, Loomis and Cervini took the reins and began booking gigs for the ensemble, and on their first European tour a repertoire began to take shape, comprised almost entirely of recently penned original songs by each member of the band.
On Willie Jones III’s new album, the drummer honors the undeniable contributions made by some of the towering figures the music world has lost in recent years. The world lost Roy Hargrove and Ndugu Chancler in 2018, then Larry Willis and Jimmy Heath, in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Through “Fallen Heroes,” Jones celebrates his personal history with his musical heroes and the impact of each. To document this celebration of music and spirit, Jones convened long-time colleagues who shared the stage with many of these masters alongside Jones throughout the years: trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, saxophonists Sherman Irby and Justin Robinson, trombonist Steve Davis, pianist George Cables and bassist Gerald Cannon.
Also this week, fretless electric bass master Charnett Moffett delivers a love letter to humanity with his new trio/quartet album, “New Love”;
pianist and composer George Cables offers up a new trio recording, “Too Close for Comfort,” with bassist Essiet Essiet and drummer Victor Lewis;
and the acclaimed Grammy-nominated guitarist Julian Lage showcases his remarkable songcraft and adventurous sense of improvisation on “Squint.”