Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
For the past 17 years, the Grammy Award-winning Spanish Harlem Orchestra has earned their reputation as today’s premiere salsa ensemble. Considered “the leading light of the salsa reconstruction movement” by Newsday, they have performed on the world’s top stages and at nearly every major jazz festival, including those in Newport, Montreal and Monterey. “The Latin Jazz Project” is a natural progression for the SHO as their artistic director, Oscar Hernandez, is considered one of the most important Latin jazz pianists of his generation. Hernandez has melded his Latin jazz expertise with Spanish Harlem Orchestra’s signature salsa dura sound to produce the ensemble’s first all-Latin jazz recording.
“Data Lords” is a new double-album by Grammy Award-winning composer and bandleader Maria Schneider. Inspired by conflicting relationships between the digital and natural worlds, the recording features Schneider’s acclaimed orchestra of 18 world-class musicians. “As big data companies clamor for our attention, I know that I’m not alone in struggling to find space—to keep connected with my inner world, the natural world, and just the simpler things in life,” says Schneider. “Just as I feel myself ping ponging between a digital world and the real world, the same dichotomy is showing up I my music…it felt natural to make a two-album release reflecting these two polar extremes.”
Also this week, Mark Egan and Danny Gottlieb, long time band mates and highly acclaimed rhythm section, draw from their 49 years of playing experience with Pat Metheny, Gil Evans, Pat Martino, Larry Coryell and many other luminaries and explore their highly creative interplay and improvisational stylings on “Electric Blue”;
Nigerian-born bassist, composer and arranger Michael Olatuja enlisted the talents of Dianne Reeves, Regina Carter, Joe Lovano, Lionel Louke and others to realize his vision of what he calls Cinematic Afrobeat on his second release, “Lagos Pepper Soup”;
and Randy Brecker and Eric Marienthal team up for a new project, “Double Dealin’,” featuring John Patitucci and Dave Weckl.