Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
A steadfast figure in modern straight-ahead jazz and one of the genre’s most respected drummers, Joe Farnsworth has built his name playing with legends like Wynton Marsalis, McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders, Benny Golson, and Cedar Walton, among many others. In recent years, Farnsworth has stepped beyond the traditionalist’s lane, working with boundary-pushers like Kurt Elling and Immanuel Wilkins. On his new album, “The Big Room,” he leads a dynamic, intergenerational  all-star sextet featuring rising stars and inspiring forward-thinking voices in jazz: trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, saxophonist Sarah Hanahan, vibraphonist Joel Ross, pianist Emmett Cohen, and bassist Yasushi Nakamura.

Grammy-nominated saxophonist and composer Jimmy Greene presents “As We Are Now,” a deeply personal album addressing his emotional journey more than twelve years after his daughter Ana’s life was taken at Sandy Hook School. At the album’s core is a powerful suite of songs commissioned by Chamber Music America reflecting Greene’s experience that there isn’t a straight line from tragedy to triumph, but rather a spectrum of emotions between great joy and deep sorrow. Green reunites with his core quintet of longtime collaborators: pianist Aaron Goldberg, guitarist Mike Moreno, bassist Dezron Douglas, and drummer Jonathan Barber.

Also this week, “Circles in a Yellow Room” is the new disc from the Mike Freeman Zonavibe featuring compositions written by the vibraphonist that came out of a particularly creative period during the pandemic; “My Ideal” is powerhouse saxophonist Sam Dillon’s second quartet album, recorded at the Van Gelder Studios, with a combination of originals and standards; and for Gregory Tardy’s new project, “Abide in Love,” the saxophonist and composer reunites with his 2022 quintet including trumpeter Marcus Printup, pianist Keith Brown, bassist Sean Conly and drummer Willie Jones III.