Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify    
Specific reasons led to the piano-less quartet becoming a vehicle for the more explorative jazz practitioners of the 1950s and ‘60s, namely directness of group sound and the increased interplay between ensemble members. It was during a regular visit to Uruguay’s Punta del Este Jazz Festival that trumpeter Diego Urcola was asked to present a musical tribute to the revered Gerry Mulligan Quartet that featured Chet Baker. During the quartet’s performance, Urcola invited Paquito D’Rivera to the stage, and the idea of recording in a piano-less quartet was cemented by the resounding performance. On the new recording, “El Duelo,” the trumpeter recruits D’Rivera to join him in that very rare, and exposed, playing scenario.

     Art Van Damme was the pacesetter among jazz accordionists. In 1947, he began leading a group that was inspired by the George Shearing Quintet, but with his accordion in place of the piano. Over its 35-year existence, the Art Van Damme Quintet made dozens of popular recordings. Now, in the centennial year of Van Damme’s birth, the LA Jazz Quintet has been organized with Kenny Kotwitz, one of Van Damme’s few students, providing colorful arrangements in addition to his accordion for the new CD, “When Lights Are Low.” The Quintet also features guitarist John Chiodini, bassist Chuck Berghofer, drummer Kendal Kay and vibraphonist Nick Mancini.

Also this week, master saxophonist , composer and bebop luminary Charles McPherson presents “Jazz Dance Suites,” capturing his groundbreaking collaboration with the San Diego Ballet;

Taiwanese vibraphonist Chien Chien Lu, best known to date for recording and touring with the Jeremy Pelt Quintet, releases her genre-melding debut as a leader, “The Path”;

     and Tom Guarna, a guitarist praised by DownBeat for the “emotion, tension, surprise and passion” in his music, has assembled another “dream team” of a band for his latest, “Spirit Science.”

Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify     
     The drummer of choice for some of the biggest names in jazz for more than a quarter century, Joe Farnsworth’s acute musical vision was formed over years of peerless performances and recordings with artists like George Coleman, Benny Golson, Pharoah Sanders, Curtis Fuller and Diana Krall. He is something of a piano trio specialist as well with extensive work in the classic trios of Cedar Walton, McCoy Tyner, Hank Jones and Harold Mabern among others. Now Farnsworth delivers a career defining masterpiece of his own with “Time to Swing,” featuring pianist and NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron, consummate bassist Peter Washington, and virtuoso trumpeter and cultural icon Wynton Marsalis.

     In 1996, trombonist Conrad Herwig unveiled the first installment in the popular “Latin Side of” series with the Grammy-nominated “The Latin Side of John Coltrane.” Since that time, other volumes have followed honoring Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter. “The Latin Side of Horace Silver” is the latest addition to the franchise, as Herwig has assembled an all-star band of his favorite colleagues including the Grammy-winning Dominican pianist Michel Camilo. As Downbeat magazine says, “Unsurprisingly, Silver’s wide-ranging jazz compositions prove to be fantastic fodder for Herwig and company, lending themselves well to stylistic reinterpretation and go-for-the-throat blowing.”

Also this week is a reunion of saxophonist Joshua Redman’s original acoustic quartet, showcasing his long-running creative friendship with pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade on “Round Again”;

singer Deborah Silver is joined by 10-time Grammy-winning band Asleep at the Wheel for a newly arranged array of Great American Songbook classics on “Glitter & Grits”;

     and the Cuban charanga-jazz sound of the Grammy-nominated band Mongorama is showcased on their third release, “Mariposas Cantan.”