New Releases Spotlight: Week of April 11, 2016

This week in the Music Lounge, our music director Paul Abella takes a look at three new discs that we’ve been featuring on WDCB!

Pianist Bill Charlap just put out a new disc with his longstanding trio that also features Peter Washington (bass) and Kenny Washington (drums) titled Notes from New York.  As always, Charlap sounds like class personified, swinging effortlessly through a handful of standards, both well known, like "I’ll Remember April," and lesser known, like Tiny Grimes’ "Tiny’s Tempo" or Thad Jones’ "Little Rascal on a Rock."  The highlight for me is a gorgeous version of the Alan & Marilyn Bergman tune, "Make Me Rainbows."

Legendary pianist Kenny Barron‘s new one is called Book of Intuition.  He’s joined by bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Johnathan Blake.  Barron is all over the place on this one, from the beautiful "Cook’s Bay," to the uptempo romp "Bud Like" (and he really does a great job of approximating Bud Powell on this one, too).  A couple of Monk tunes, "Shuffle Boil" and "Light Blue" are spectacular.  Everything else on the disc is written by Kenny, and it’s a great testament to his prowess both as a pianist AND a composer.

Finally, one of jazz’s great and vastly underrated saxophonists, George Coleman, just put out a new disc, called appropriately enough, A Master Speaks.  It’s an all-star session, with bassist Bob Cranshaw, pianist Mike LeDonne, guitarist Peter Bernstein (who shines on Blues for B.B.) and George’s son, George Coleman, Jr. on drums.  This wonderful disc is a nice mixture of standards ("Invitation," "The Shadow of Your Smile," "These Foolish Things," "Darn that Dream") and a few originals by George.  For me, the standout track of the disc is Mike LeDonne’s "You’ll Never Know What You Mean To Me."  LeDonne is also a force to be reckoned with on their duet on "These Foolish Things."  "Time To Get Down" and "Sonny’s Playground" really find this band smokin’.

I’ll be back next week with more jazz releases to talk about.  ‘Til then… keep your ears open!