Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Guitarist John Scofield celebrates the music of his friend and mentor Steve Swallow on “Swallow Tales,” made in an afternoon in New York City last year “old school,” as Scofield says, acknowledging that more than forty years of preparation led up to it. John was a 20-years-old student at Berklee when he first met played with bassist Steve Swallow, and they have continued ever since, in many different contexts. The rapport between the two is evident in every moment. Behind the drum kit, Bill Stewart is alert to all the implications of the interaction.
Though based in multiple musical realms, pianist Alain Mallet’s ambitious Mutt Slang projects coalesce into a world that exudes ‘exotic’ yet ultimately feels familiar. Sharing the musical landscape with young musicians from Palestine, Brazil, Italy, Israel, Japan, Bulgaria, Panama, Ireland, Puerto Rico and the U.S., the complexity of their backgrounds—musically, ethnically, and otherwise–permeates the session for the newest edition, “A Wake of Sorrows Engulfed in Rage,” suffusing Mallet’s compositions with an undeniable energy and life.
Also this week, “Anemone” features New York-based tenor saxophonist Vito Dieterle performing swinging and soulful jazz in an updated version of the classic tenor-organ-guitar-drums quartet;
pianist-vocalist Dena DeRose and her trio mates Martin Wind and Matt Wilson are joined by special guests Houston Person on saxophone, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt and singer Sheila Jordan on Dena’s eleventh album as a leader, “Ode to the Road”;
and the 3D Jazz Trio, featuring Diva Jazz Orchestra members Sherrie Maricle on drums, Amy Shook on bass and Jackie Warren on piano, unveil “I Love to See You Smile.”