Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
“LifeSongs” is the masterful new album by renowned trombonist-composer-arranger Marshall Gilkes and the heralded WDR Big Band. It represents something of a musical homecoming for Gilkes. He spent four memorable years in Cologne, making his mark within the ranks of the brass section of the band until his exit in late 2013. The new disc marks the third collaboration with the band since his departure. It’s a crowning achievement for the twice-Grammy nominated artist, who is known internationally for his virtuosic command of the trombone, and widely recognized as one of the great big band composers of our era.  

Drummer, percussionist and composer Marlon Simon has traveled myriad different paths over the course of his nearly four-decade career. There is the personal journey that has led him from a small town in his native Venezuela to pursuing jazz in Philadelphia, New York, and now to his current home near Houston. There are the parallel musical paths—playing straight-ahead swing with pianist Hilton Ruiz, traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms with the Fort Apache Band and Chucho Valdes, Latin jazz grooves with Dave Valentin, and progressive jazz with Bobby Watson. “On Different Paths” is his seventh and most ambitious album to date, and his fifth outing with his eclectic band, The Nagual Spirits.

Also this week, Rufus Reid, acknowledged as one of the best bassists in jazz for decades, teams up with the heralded young pianist Sullivan Fortner for the duo recording, “It’s the Nights I Like”; trumpeter Jun Iida’s warm, inviting tone, astute composition choices and sublime sense of melody lead the way on his debut recording, “Evergreen”; and singer and songwriter Mark Winkler is backed by both big band and small groups on his latest effort, “The Rules Don’t Apply.”