Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify 
Think of the songwriters whose work comprises the cannon of jazz standards, and names like Gershwin, Rodgers, Berlin and Porter immediately come to mind. On his new album, “Black, Brown, and Blue,” pianist Eric Reed argues for a revision of that canon to focus on Black and Brown composers, songwriters whose work originates within the jazz realm rather than on the Broadway stage. The disc features music written by jazz masters like Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter Benny Golson, Horace Silver, Buddy Collette and Buster Williams, along with jazz-conversant pop/R&B songwriters Stevie Wonder and Bill Withers.

     In the eighteen years since she arrived in New York City, Sara Caswell has become the first call violinist for creative bandleaders in the jazz world and beyond. Her credentials include tours and recordings with luminaries including esperanza spalding, Henry Threadgill, Fred Hersch, Regina Carter, Bran Mehldau, the WDR Big Band, Brian Blade and others. That demanding schedule has left Caswell with limited time to focus on her own projects. She hasn’t released an album under her own name in over 17 years. That long delay finally comes to an end with the release of “The Way to You.” It features the stellar band that Caswell has led for the past decade, with guitarist Jesse Lewis, bassist Ike Sturm and drummer Jared Schonig.   

Also this week, “Live @ the Side Door” is the newest release from esteemed drummer Vince Ector and his Organatomy Trio +, capturing the stellar Philadelphia bred/NY-based outfit’s 2020 performance at the iconic Side Door Jazz Club in Old Lyme, CT.;

5-time Grammy winner Billy Childs assembles an all-star quartet with trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade on “The Winds of Change”;

     and drummer and composer Kendrick Scott presents “Corridors,” a striking new album that finds him paring down to a trio featuring saxophonist Walter Smith III and bassist Reuben Rogers.

    Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify 
Vince Mendoza, who has won seven Grammy Awards and been nominated 36 times, reunited with his longtime collaborator Metropole Orkest to record “Olympians,” a select collection of the composer/conductor’s works written for the orchestra over their 28-year collaboration. Born out of the ashes of World War II, the Orkest has been a major part of cultural life in the Netherlands for over 75 years. Their special guests on the new disc include vocalists Dianne Reeves and Cecile McLorin Salvant, saxophonists Chris Potter and David Binney, percussionist Alex Acuna, and the late guitarist Ramon Stagnaro.

     Since joining forces four years ago, the dazzling duo of bassist Leon Lee Dorsey and drummer Mike Clark have released a plethora of critically-acclaimed albums with a different featured guest each time. On their sixth collaboration since 2019, “Cantaloupe Island,” the pair has tapped guitar great Russell Malone to bring to life an invigorating nine-track program of compositions by Horace Silver, West Montgomery, Prince and more.

Also this week, legendary singer and songwriter Paul Carrack teams up with the Grammy Award-winning SWR Big Band to celebrate the golden era of music from the ‘50s and beyond on “Don’t Wait Too Long”;

 the Madison, Wisconsin-based contemporary jazz fusion ensemble Mr. Chair drops their new release, “Better Days”;

       and the trio of Marco Vezzoso, Alessandro Collina and Andrea Marchesini perform the music of fellow Italian songwriter Vasco Rossi on “Kind of Vasco.”