Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
      Approaching 80 years of age is occasion enough for anyone to take a moment and look back on a life well lived. For legendary drummer Al Foster, those eight decades have been more memorable than most, filled with exhilarating sounds and encounters with some of the music’s iconic legends. Foster revisits the work of several of those peers on his new disc, “Reflections.” The session features vital treatments of well-known and less-traveled numbers by iconic legends Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Sonny Rolllins and McCoy Tyner, all of whom regarded Foster as their first-call drummer for long portions of his celebrated career.

     Veteran guitarist and composer Grant Geissman’s storied career took off in 1978 when he recorded alongside Chuck Mangione on the flugelhornist’s platinum selling “Feels So Good,” and became part of Mangione’s touring band. His prolific career as a session musician has included work alongside other greats like Quincy Jones, Burt Bacharach, Lorraine Feather, Gordon Goodwin and David Benoit. Geissman’s solo work in the 1980s also helped define the contemporary instrumental music of that era while his work writing and performing for film and television has earned him an Emmy Award. His new CD, “Blooz,” is a collection of original blues and jazz songs, performed by a stellar cast of musicians and friends like Randy Brecker, Robben Ford, Russell Ferrante and Tom Scott.

Also this week, trombonist Ben Patterson channels the likes of the Crusaders, the Brecker Brothers and Herbie Hancock in creating a set of new original music on “The Way of the Groove”;

 one of Canada’s most recognizable voices in jazz, Tia Brazda, delves into the past rediscovering songs from the Great American Songbook on “When I Get Low”;

    and multi Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Brian Lynch returns with his Spheres of Influence band for a second volume of his acclaimed Songbook Series, “Dance the Way You Want To.”

Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify     
As fans of Ranky Tanky well know, drummer-producer-composer Quentin Baxter thrives on having one foot in tradition and the other in the future. The Grammy-winning ensemble, which he co-founded in South Carolina in 2016, takes an exuberant approach to Gullah, the music created by descendants of the South Carolina Low Country’s storied enslaved African community. On “Art Moves Jazz,” Baxter’s long-awaited first recording under his own name, he applies Gullah rhythms to jazz classics, two by Thelonious Monk and three by the great Jimmy Heath. And on the four-part title suite, his improvisations, as suggested by the title, were inspired by visual art—specifically the abstract landscapes of local artist John Duckworth.

     Veteran drummer Mike Clark and stalwart bassist Leon Lee Dorsey continue their fruitful collaboration with the release of “Blues on Top.” It’s their fifth recording together, with each collaboration finding the superb rhythm section augmented by a star third guest. Past guests included Manual Valera, Harold Mabern, Michael Wolff and Greg Skaff. This time around they’re in the company of renowned pianist, Mike LeDonne, who is a leader in his own right and has been a first-call sideman for jazz icons such as Milt Jackson and Benny Golson. The new recording marks the first time the three musicians have ever played together.

 Also this week, trombonist Michael Dease gathers together an assemblage of exceptional musicians to help him interactively explore the essence of the blues and reframe the abstract truths of jazz with “Best Next Thing”;

The Jazz Professors from the University of Central Florida offer up their fourth album, “Blues and Cubes,” which marks drummer Marty Morell’s final recording with the group as he retires from his teaching position;

    and North Carolina-born pianist Thomas Linger is joined by an all-star cast on his debut disc, “Out In It.”