Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Carol Sloane is not a household name, but it should be. Legions of ardent jazz fans are more than acquainted with her smooth yet agile vocal stylings and the ease with which she delivers the most challenging standards. Jazz greats such as Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Carmen McRae were contemporaries she not only shared a stage with, but friends with whom she shared her life. Now in her eighties, Carol returned to the legendary Birdland Jazz Club in Manhattan for a triumphant final recording. She is backed up on “Live at Birdland” by pianist Mike Renzi, bassist Jay Leonhart and saxophonist Scott Hamilton.

     For the past fifteen years, former Yellowjackets bassist Jimmy Haslip has had a fruitful working relationship with prolific German composer MSM Schmidt. Now collaborating on their sixth album, the chemistry reaches new heights with “ARCeology: The Music of MSM Schmidt.” The dynamic project finds Haslip and members of his ARC Trio (keyboardist Scott Kinsey and Hungarian drummer Gergo Borlai) joining forces with the Grammy Award-winning John Daversa Big Band on greatly expanded versions of Schmidt material, along with one of Kinsey’s compositions. The result is a powerhouse collection of swaggering big band fusion, along the lines of the legendary Jaco Pastorius Big Band.

Also this week, singer-songwriter-pianist Ben Sidran dips into the 1930’s standards songbook on a new instrumental disc, “Swing State,” with his longtime bassist Billy Peterson and son Leo on drums;

 Australian-born, long-time New York based saxophonist and composer Troy Roberts  unveils the fourth release with his Nu-Jive band, “Nations United”;

    and singer CeCe Gable keeps company with Harvie S, Matt Wilson, Alan Broadbent and Roni Ben-Hur on “Next Year’s Song.”