Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify It was in 2017 that the trio known as 3 More Sounds was formed, a co-op group with former Gene Harris & Three Sounds bassist Henry “Skipper” Franklin and drummer Carl Burnett, along with pianist Robert Turner. With Franklin’s three years with Harris and Burnett’s ten years, they …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Guitarist George Freeman is jazz history. His memories burn bright from a childhood surrounded by jazz greats Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller stopping by his home for a visit and to play the piano. His life in music has taken him around the world as a spirited sideman for …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify “Late Bloomin’ Jazzman,” the newest album by vocalist and songwriter Mark Winkler, is an homage to growing older and all the blessings and drawbacks that come with it. The album is Winkler’s 20th as a leader. He wrote lyrics to eight of the 12 tunes, and covers a lot of …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify On “Glass Spheres,” 24-year-old Nashville bassist and composer Chris Mondak looks to the future while showing a deep reverence for the jazz tradition’s rich past. Mondak, who was born in Venezuela, is a 2020 graduate of the New England Conservatory, where he trained with jazz legends Cecil McBee, …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Trumpeter, composer and author Jeremy Pelt has certainly never shied away from themed albums, so one might expect something cinematic from the enigmatically-titled “Soundtrack.” However, as Pelt himself explains, “I’ve certainly done plenty of conceptual albums, but in this case there’s nothing I’m on a soapbox about. It’s …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Regarded as one of Africa’s first international superstars, Zenzile Miriam Makeba elevated the spirit of a continent, including her native South Africa. Her courage, however, was met with three decades of political exile from her homeland followed by blacklisting in the U.S. after her marriage to …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify There are a mere handful of guitarists that have changed the way we think about the guitar over the past five or six decades. Pat Martino is perhaps one of the greatest and best-known of those icons. His life story was the very definition of the term “genius.” …
Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify Grammy-nominated vocalist Catherine Russell’s deep connection to her chosen material is part of a calling. As the daughter of pioneering and legendary musicians, pianist/orchestra leader/composer/arranger Luis Russell, and bassist/guitarist/vocalist Carline Ray, Catherine was born into jazz royalty. When asked to characterize her new album, “Send for Me,” …
