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.”

       Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify.      
Composing music inspired by painting dates back as far as the 12^th century and, in jazz, Duke Ellington’s “Degas Suite” comes to mind along with Branford Marsalis’s “Romare Bearden Revealed.” But with his new album, “Jeremy Pelt the Artist,” trumpeter Jeremy Pelt may be the first jazz artist to examine the relationship between music and sculpture. The five-movement “Rodin Suite” muses not only on works the French sculptor August Rodin left us, but also how his art might have evolved if he were still with us today. Added to keyboardist Victor Gould, bassist Vincente Archer and a few other of his regulars, Pelt has added the guitar of Alex Wintz, the vibes and marimba of Chien Chien Lu and the exotic percussion of Ismel Wignall.

     The Chicago Soul Jazz Collective is an ensemble dedicated to performing the classics from the early 1960’s soul jazz era by such luminaries as Ramsey Lewis, Lee Morgan, Herbie Hancock, Eddie Harris, Jimmy Smith and many more. It was born from a horn section recording session for a Robbie Fulks track when saxophonist John Fournier bonded with trumpet master Marques Carroll over their love of soul jazz. The idea of starting an ensemble showcasing the grooves and tunes of that specific repertoire began that day, with Marques in charge of assembling some of the finest players in Chicago while Fournier gathered material. Marques enlisted Marcin Fahmy, Keith Brooks, Andrew Vogt and Kyle Asche and the group began rehearsing and booking shows. Their debut CD is “Soulophone.”

Also this week, organist Tony Monaco enlisted some of the finest, most seasoned musicians from his home base in Columbus, Ohio, for his eleventh CD as a leader, “The Definition of Insanity”;

 guitarist Thom Rotella, whose talents have led him to work with Stanley Turrentine, Tom Scott, Gerald Albright and others, presents a mix of jazz and popular chestnuts and striking originals on “Storyline”;

and the all-star contemporary jazz group Thom Rotella, featuring Everette Harp, Jeff Lorber and Paul Jackson, Jr., unveil their “Life and Times.”