Seven years have passed since Emmet Cohen released his celebrated debut trio record. Since then, the Harlem-based rising star pianist has established himself as artfully prolific with the release of two volumes of his acclaimed Masters Legacy Series, albums featuring jazz giants Jimmy Cobb and Ron Carter, with another featuring the great Benny Golson in the can. Cohen’s 2018 tour schedule rivaled that of a foreign dignitary, having been on the road with Christian McBride’s Tip City Trio, Tootie Heath, Houston Person, and vocalist Veronica Swift, among others. But he has spent the majority of the past year dedicated to building his trio’s style, repertoire, and exposure with audiences near and far. “Dirty in Detroit,” recorded in front of a live audience at Detroit’s Dirty Dog Café, is the culmination of a year’s worth of the Emmet Cohen Trio playing together.

     Al Hood is a trumpeter from the Denver, Colorado region who performs and records regularly with the Ken Walker Sextet, the Peter Sommer Septet, and the H2 Big Band and Jazztet. He is professor of trumpet at the University of Denver and has toured and recorded with the likes of Curtis Fuller, Ray Charles, Wynton Marsalis and Clark Terry, to name a few. He is also widely known as an authority on the life and music of jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown. His new CD with the H2 Jazzet, “Jazz Muses,” is all about inspirations. It features ten compositions by the jazz trumpet greats who have inspired him the most, and who were themselves, in turn, inspired to write turns based on their own personal female muses—either real or alliterative.

     Also this week, “Carnival: the Sound of a People” is trumpeter and composer Etienne Charles’ exciting new CD inspired by the Carnival traditions of his homeland of Trinidad & Tobago; Jenna & the Charmers re-interpret and re-imagine some of their favorite jazz, pop and rock songs on their debut, “Everyone I Love is Here”; and saxophonist Corey Weeds is captured “Live at Frankie’s Jazz Club” in Vancouver in a quintet featuring pianist Harold Mabern and trumpeter Terell Stafford.

     Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify. 

Caesar Frazier is a true keeper of the B-3 grail, assuming the mantle of the great organists such as Jimmy Smith and Brother Jack McDuff and building upon their legacy to become one of today’s finest exponents of the instrument. From his years with Lou Donaldson through his time spent touring with Marvin Gaye, Frazier developed his own unique soulful style not just as an instrumentalist but as a composer as well. His new recording finds him in a quartet setting with a hand-picked group of the West Coast’s busiest players. Original tunes from Frazier’s pen rub elbows with standards from Nat Adderly, Benny Golson and others.

     Tadd Dameron believed in finding the pretty notes to express his vision of how music should sound. His many compositions and arrangements were interpreted by the luminaries of the bebop era such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Fats Navarro. Many of Dameron’s compositions also have lyrics which are the subject of a new tribute disc by singer Vanessa Rubin, “The Dream is You.” Ms. Rubin enlisted the help of an A-list of arrangers, all of whom are American jazz masters who were either contemporaries of Tadd’s or influenced by him. They include Frank Foster, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, Bobby Watson and one of Tadd’s home-town compatriots, Willie Smith.

Also this week, pianist and composer Amina Figarova celebrates the 20^th anniversary of her band with “Road to the Sun”;

trumpeter Randy Brecker fronts the NDR Bigband of Hamburg with works composed from different periods of his career on “Randy Brecker Rocks,” which also features alto sax great David Sanborn, drummer Wolfgang Haffner and Ana Rovatti on tenor and soprano saxophones;

    and the soulful jazz/funk organ trio out of Toronto, JV’s Boogaloo Squad, unveil their debut CD, “Going to Market.”