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.”