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

Clovis Nicolas has been an important voice on the New York music scene since his arrival from Paris in the early 2000s. Having already established himself as a first-call bassist in Europe, he quickly garnered attention with many of the music’s most noted players, including Peter Bernstein, Frank Wess, Joe Magnarelli and Behn Gillece. The concept behind his new CD, “Freedom Suite Ensuite,” came from a succession of gigs that Nicolas participated in with a two saxophone quartet with bass and drums and no piano or guitar. It’s a tribute of sorts to the musician who exemplifies playing free within the form, saxophone great Sonny Rollins. He has reworked Rollin’s classic “Freedom Suite,” for the disc along with original compositions and standards.

     On “Modern Lore,” Julian Lage’s second studio recording with his trio, the composer and guitarist focuses on the groove, building his melodies and solos around the work of the prodigious rhythm section of bassist Scott Colley and drummer Kenny Wolleson. It finds him playfully flipping the script he followed on his acclaimed 2016 disc, “Arclight.” “Last time it was specifically a combination of the electric guitar being a lead voice interacting with those pre-bop songs,” Lage recalls. “I wanted to do a jazz record the way I had always craved to do one.” This time he incorporated the sensibility, if not the outright sound of early rock and roll—a similarly hybrid form driven by rhythm, personality and a passion for the electric guitar.

Also this week, Cedar Rapids native Pat Daugherty leads his New York Electric Piano into their 15^th year of existence with “State of the Art”. 

Composer and arranger Bob Washut, long-time faculty member and one-time head of the University of Northern Iowa jazz department, leads his Dodectet on a “Journey to Knowhere”.

Puerto Rican-born tenor saxophonist and composer Roy McGrath’s new CD, “Remembranzas,” features eight original compositions.  

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

Calgary’s Prime Time Big Band is one of Canada’s premiere large jazz ensembles. Conceived of and led by former Canadian Armed Forces Band director and trumpeter Dave Jones, they are one of the busiest working big bands in the county featuring some of Alberta’s top jazz musicians. On top of playing numerous concerts, festivals and private events throughout the year, they’ve been performing a regular concert series at Calgary’s Ironwood Stage & Grill for the past fifteen years, maturing and developing into a very tight ensemble with a defined musical voice. Every second Saturday afternoon from September to June, they perform to sold-out crowds for their jazz brunch. They were tracked live over three days in November 2016 for their new disc, “Live at the Ironwood.”

A fiery and dedicated improviser and composer, saxophonist Idit Shner’s latest quartet recording, “9 Short Stories,” highlights her rich and ongoing relationship with pianist Josh Hanlon and drummer Stockton Helbing, which dates back to the early 2000s when she was working on her Doctorate at the University of North Texas. Along with bassist James Driscoll, the quartet tackles a program of Idit’s compositions, all based in the jazz tradition but with influences ranging from traditional melodies and rhythms from Zimbabwe, to classical Arabic music, to the Latin-tinged grooves of McCoy Tyner from his early ‘70s recordings.

Also this week, pianist Deanna Witkowski’s sixth recording, “Makes the Heart to Sing: Jazz Hymns,” is a luminously lyrical trio session interpreting a spiritually charged body of music rarely investigated by jazz artists. 

Veteran San Francisco-based organist Caesar Frazier offers up a dose of soul jazz on “Instinct”.

The United States Air Force band, the Airmen of Note, unveils “Veterans of Jazz,” paying tribute to jazz legends who have served in the Armed Forces, including Cedar Walton, Percy Heath, Wayne Shorter and John Coltrane.