Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Known for his rich, full tone and polished improvisations, saxophonist and composer Jed Levy has earned the sobriquet of modern master. A mainstay on the New York City jazz scene for 40 years, he has played with a who’s who of jazz, including long standing working relationships with Jaki Byard, Don Patterson, and Jack McDuff. Levy has 10 previous recordings under his own name and has appeared on over 40 recordings as a sideman. His compositional talents are prominently featured on his new CD, “Faces and Places,” drawn from his 500+ original works.
During his last years, Wes Montgomery and his commercially savvy producer, Creed Taylor, employed a number of legendary arrangers to propel the guitarist to larger audiences. The legendary orchestrators he hired, including Oliver Nelson, Don Sebesky, and Johnny Pate, had as much to do with his increased accessibility as the songs he chose to play. “More Amor: A Tribute to Wes Montgomery,” recorded by the Chicago Jazz Orchestra featuring Bobby Broom, is as much a tribute to those gentlemen as it is to Montgomery. With those arrangers’ historic musical footprints as a guide, what emerges is the voice of a band, its soloists, and three highly original arrangers: Alex Brown, Tom Garling and Charley Harrison.
Also this week, jazz pianist par excellence, Cyrus Chestnut, returns to the High Note label with a superb new quartet recording, “Rhythm, Melody and Harmony,” showcasing his rhythmic precision, emotive touch, and improvisational flair; saxophonist Diego Rivera delivers a powerful and deeply personal statement, channeling his emotions into a poignant new quartet recording, “West Circle”; and pianist and composer Dave Bass seamlessly melds bebop, classical, Latin, and pop to create richly textured, high-energy music that takes the listener on a surprising journey on “Trio Nuevo Vol. 2.”