Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
When pianist Kevin Hays, bassist Ben Street and drummer Billy Hart, three of the most admired and respected musicians in jazz, assembled on one of the darkest, coldest nights at the end of a difficult year of despair, they were merely together to perform for Smoke Jazz Club’s livestreaming concert series in celebration of Billy’s 80th birthday. What happened next was music of such illumination and joy, that it was quickly decided that the music should be preserved and shared as a recording. “All Things Are” is the result of those performances, capturing these three artists in peak form and reveling in the simple pleasure of making music together after so few opportunities in almost a year.
As chief conductor of the stellar WDR Big Band of Cologne, Germany, for the last six years, Bob Mintzer was ready to showcase his own material with the world-class large ensemble. An amalgam of moods, grooves and intricate textures, the new CD, “Soundscapes,” not only showcases Mintzer’s writing for the indelibly tight, universally esteemed ensemble, it also finds him doing double duty as principal soloist on tenor sax and EWI. He also provides a spotlight for such other outstanding soloists as longtime WDR members Paul Heller on tenor sax, Karolina Strassmayer and John Horlen on alto saxes, Ruud Breuls and Andy Haderer on trumpets and Andy Hunter on trombone.
Also this week, saxophonist Troy Roberts and guitarist Tim Jago, who were both born and raised in Australia and both initially re-located to the U.S. to undertake graduate studies at the University of Miami Frost School of Music, come together as “Best Buddies”;
The Mark Masters Ensemble featuring Art Baron and Tim Hagens interpret the music of Ellington’s Blanton-Webster Band on “Masters and Baron Meet Blanton & Webster”;
and veteran L.A.-based bass player Henry “Skipper” Franklin, who has played and recorded with the likes of Freddie Hubbard, Hampton Hawes and Count Basie, offers up “Showers of Blessings.”
