Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify
Ray Mantilla was one of the true conga giants from the 1950s through the ‘70s recording hundreds of album sessions and pioneering the use of unique combinations of Latin percussion instruments. In 1977, he was chosen by the great jazz ambassador Dizzy Gillespie to accompany him to Cuba as the first U.S. band to visit the island since the travel embargo of 1962. For his new CD, “Rebirth,” Mantilla surrounded himself with his longtime colleagues Edy Martinez, Ivan Renta, Guido Gonzalez, Diego Lopez and others. After a long illness, the irrepressible conguero passed away a few short months after completing sessions for the CD.
The Black Art Jazz Collective was founded in 2012 by Wayne Escoffery and Jeremy Pelt with the aim of honoring and preserving the art of some of the progenitors of jazz who inspired them, hired them and mentored them first hand. And while the band does pay homage to the greats of the past they also continue the evolving tradition of jazz with a body of work that remains firmly entrenched in the modernism of today. On their new CD, “Ascension,” the ensemble extends the range and potential established by their illustrious predecessors with innovative original compositions, solos that run the gamut from thoughtful to virtuosic and a shared sense of purpose that is unique on today jazz landscape.
Also this week, pianist Art Hirahara undergoes a transformative journey of self-exploration to discover the “Balance Point” on his fifth release;
pianist Jordan Siegel combines the inventiveness and interplay of jazz with the transportive emotional power of the best film scores on his debut release, “Beyond Images”;
and pianist, saxophonist and composer Zen Zadravec pushes the boundaries in the use of harmony, melody, rhythm and time signatures on his latest CD, “Human Revolution.”