Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Bassist and composer Gabriel Espinosa’s “The Brazilian Project” is the realization of a lifelong devotion to the music that first stirred his imagination in the 1960s when the sounds of Jobim, Joao Donato and Sergio Mendes reshaped the global jazz landscape. Raised in Mexico on boleros and the Beatles, …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Certain songs have a way of lingering in the imagination—resonating long after we’ve last heard them. On his new album, “Enduring Sonance,” veteran saxophonist and flutist Steve Wilson celebrates the music that has left the deepest imprint on his musical life. Originally conceived as a ballads project, the disc …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Sonny Rollins is never far from Bobby Broom’s mind. He spent more time in the tenor sax titan’s band than any other guitarist, and his new trio album, “Notes of Thanks,” is a deep dive into Sonny’s songbook. Featuring veteran bassist Dennis Carroll, a Broom collaborator since the early …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Posi-Tone Records continues its Blue Moods series with an interpretive exploration of compositions by the iconic and legendary Miles Davis. Drawing upon the breadth of Davis’s output as a composer, “Directions and Expressions” balances atmosphere and intensity, space and momentum, distilling both subtlety and fire with a contemporary vibrance …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Chris Potter’s “Alive with Ghosts Today” brings together Bill Frisell, Nate Smith and Burniss Travis with Rane Moore (clarinet), Zekkereye El-Magharbel (trombone) and Sara Caswell (violin) in a deliberately off-center ensemble that places Potter’s tenor and soprano inside a textural, human-scale sound world. Written around the story of abolitionist …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Over the past decade, bassist Ben Allison, guitarist Steve Cardenas and saxophonist Ted Nash have developed a unique group sound and approach—one based on improvisation, mutual trust, and an almost uncanny ability to predict each other’s musical moves. Following their previous four albums that focused on music by iconic …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify “Torch Bearers” is the new recording from Grammy Award winning trumpeter-composer-arranger Brian Lynch, featuring legendary saxophonist Charles McPherson. Recorded at Van Gelder Studios with an all-star lineup, the album documents the first recorded collaboration between Lynch and McPherson since their initial meeting in1980, reflecting a shared artistic lineage shaped …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Trombonist-arranger-composer Dr. Javier Nero deepens his artistic vision with “Alkebulan,” a sweeping concept album from the Javier Nero Jazz Orchestra. Drawing its title from theories of a unified precolonial African civilization, the disc explores themes of cultural connection, humanity, and shared ancestry. The music weaves lush jazz orchestration with …
