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

Drummer Jack Kilby formed his band the Front Line in 2014 in New York City. It includes members from New York, Washington, D.C. and Virginia. Kilby and bassist Kris Monson both grew up in northern Virginia and attended the University of Virginia where they met veteran trumpeter John D’earth, who directs the UVA Jazz Ensemble and is a centerpiece of Charlottesville’s music scene. There they also met saxophonist Charles Owens, who went on to spend a dozen years in New York City performing with some of the world’s finest musicians. The group’s sextet formation was solidified upon Kilby meeting trombonist Elad Cohen in New York. D.C. native and master pianist Allyn Johnson rounds out the rhythm section for the band’s debut release, “Love is a Song Anyone Can Sing.”

   Born in Israel in 1979, pianist Ehud Asherie lived in Italy for six years before his family moved to New York. Largely self-taught, or rather, “old-schooled,” he learned the ropes at Smalls, spending much of his early teens becoming a fixture of the late-night jam sessions held at this now legendary Greenwich Village club. He has since worked with a broad range of musicians including Cecile McLorin Salvant, Wycliffe Gordon, John Pizzarellli and Charles McPherson. On his new release, “Wild Man Blues,” Ehud dips into the fertile fields of early New Orleans jazz, swing, bebop and the Great American songbook, as well as a deep passion for the music of Brazil.

Also this week, alto saxophonist Steve Slagle expands his discography with his premiere recording featuring his talent on the flute with “Spirit Calls”;

 guitarist Doug MacDonald unveils his third organ project, “Organisms”;

and trumpeter James Suggs makes his recording debut with “You’re Gonna Hear From Me,” with special guest Houston Person on tenor sax.

     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.