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Veteran bassist Leon Lee Dorsey and drummer extraordinaire Mike Clark have forged a deep simpatico together over the course of four projects. And while each outing has featured a different third guest, the rhythmic hookup between Dorsey and Clark has underscored those recordings. The special guest on their fourth outing, “Freedom Jazz Dance,” is the brilliant Cuban-born pianist Manuel Valera, a free-spirited musician with command of multiple idioms. Dedicated to the late Puerto Rican-born piano master Hilton Ruiz, whom Dorsey regularly played with in his last years, the collection of eight tunes highlights the same kind of bilingual musical aesthetic that Ruiz embraced throughout his amazing career.

     Chicago pianist Steve Million met guitarist Steve Cardenas and drummer Ron Vincent when they all lived in Kansas City in the late ‘70s, and by 1980 they fully realized their musical kinship, performing widely under the name Four Friends. It was with Million’s and Vincent’s move to New York in 1981 that the band ceased performing. In November, 2019 they reunited in New York, along with bassist John Sims, to see how the music had fared over the decades. The resulting disc, “What I Meant to Say,” is as much about the enduring relationships of these players over several decades as it is about the compositions of Million.

Also this week, the prolific award-winning guitarist Chris Standring is joined by Randy Brecker, Peter Erskine, Harvey Mason and a 19-piece orchestra in putting his unique spin on songs from the Great American Songbook on “Wonderful World”;

the supergroup Band of Other Brothers, featuring Jeff Coffin, Jeff Babko, Will Lee, Nir Felder and Keith Carlock, unveils its second collection, “Look Up!”;

      and drummer Jae Sinnett’s “Altered Egos” is a trio session with pianist Allen Farnham and drummer Terry Burrell.

   Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
 “Songs from My Father” is the much-anticipated new album from renowned musical polymath Gerry Gibbs. On his thirteenth release as a leader, the drummer and bandleader presents a double-disc masterwork featuring four iterations of his acclaimed Thrasher Dream Trio. Gibbs and his band of jazz titans pay homage to the musical legacy of Gerry’s 96-year-old father, Terry Gibbs, one of the last living architects of bebop and innovators of the vibraphone. Gerry arranged 18 tunes from his father’s vast discography and went on a nationwide trek to capture recordings alongside a long list of his friends and collaborators like Ron Carter, Kenny Barron, Buster Williams, Patrice Rushen, Larry Goldings, Geoff Keezer and Christian McBride. Also included is the last recorded performance of Chick Corea.

     For five years in the mid-1980s, the 1369 Club in Cambridge, MA, was a thriving, vibrant and colorful home to a diverse clientele of both jazz “newbies” and the cognoscenti. The roster of performers was equally diverse, made up of top local and national jazz artists. For three nights in 1985, the awe-inspiring triumvirate of guitarist and Miles Davis alumnus Mike Stern, bassist Harvie S and Boston-based drummer Alan Dawson held court, delivering performances of great intensity, virtuosity and unforgettable excitement. A compilation of some of those performances are available now for the first time on “Going for It.”

 Also this week, pianist Bobby West, a mainstay on L.A.’s jazz scene since the ‘70s, pays tribute to the vibrant cultural and artistic heart of Los Angeles’ African-American community on his debut “Leimert Park After Dark”;

Billy Test, a Pennsylvania native who currently holds the piano chair in the Grammy Award-winning WDR Big Band of Koln, Germany, makes his debut as a leader with the new trio disc, “Coming Down Roses”;

    and guitarist Leni Stern again fronts her cross-cultural New York quartet on “Dance,” colored with a blend of international rhythms, richly harmonized vocals and Stern’s jazzy six-string lyricism.