Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.
Pop music has been a ri
ch resource that jazz artists have mined for generations and the music of the 1960s is no exception, with many finding inspiration in the songs of the Beatles. Organissimo, the acclaimed Michigan-based trio centered around the powerful Hammond B3 organ, presents a new take on the Beatles oeuvre on its 6th album, “B3tles-A Soulful Tribute to the Fab Four.” While traveling the highways of the American South returning from a festival in Tupelo, MS, in 2016, the band passed the time listening to their favorite Beatles songs and inevitably discussed arranging them for the organ trio format. They eventually convened in keyboardist Jim Alfredson’s home studio to flesh out those ideas, with arrangements coming together in a group setting.
Over the past half century, Howard Johnson, the eminence grise of low brass, has appeared on hundreds of album playing tuba, baritone sax, bass clarinet, electric bass and other instruments with jazz giants including Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, Lee Morgan, Chick Corea, Tony Williams and Gato Barbieri. With “Testimony,” his third recording with his band Gravity, Johnson takes a giant step forward in making the music world safe for tubas and low brass. His ten-piece tuba choir, which also includes veterans Earl McIntyre and Bob Stewart, takes on a program of Johnson’s originals as well as compositions by McCoy Tyner, Carol King and others.
Also this week, saxophonist Lisa Parrott, winner of the 2016 Downbeat Critics Poll in the Rising Star category for baritone sax and one of many Australians who have shown they can succeed on the competitive New York jazz scene, pays homage to her homeland with “Round Tripper”. Pianist Mike Longo is joined by fellow Dizzy Gillespie Band alumni Paul West on bass and Lewis Nash on drums for “Only Time Will Tell”.
Reedman Ke
n Fowser offers up another batch of original compositions with his quintet on “Now Hear This!”