New Releases Spotlight: Week of March 02, 2015

This week in The Music Lounge, music director Paul Abella takes a look at three local releases that you can hear on WDCB!

Kendall Moore is a trombonist and composer living in Miami these days (working on his doctorate), but he’s originally from Chicago.  His new album, Focus, has a familiar feel and texture, probably due to the presence of fellow Chicagoan Marquis Hill.  The songs and playing on Focus display some R&B influence, and there are even a couple of standards to ease your way into Moore’s concept.   His version of the Miles Davis & Bill Evans classic "Blue in Green" is a drastic recasting of the song! And there are a bunch of other great moments too.  I hope you’ll dig it as much as I do!

Trumpeter Chad McCullough made a big splash in Chicago a few months back with the debut album from his group The Spin Quartet and his album In Circles.  For Chad’s next release, he works with Bram Weitjers, who gets co-billing, on Abstract Quantities.  Don’t let the name scare you; this is a beautifully done mainstream jazz CD.  "Glorious Traffic Jam" is a nice place to start, but the all-original program is really nice throughout.  I think our listeners will find a lot to like here!

Guitarist Andy Brown has put out a really beautiful album simply called Soloist.  Solo jazz guitar records aren’t an everyday occurrence, so when one comes out there are always high hopes.  Soloist lives up to and even surpasses all expectations.  Brazilian flavored melodies like "O Borquinho" and "By Myself" really take the cake here, but everything is nice.  Over the course of the next few weeks, our listeners should hear pretty much everything that Andy has included on this disc.

Next week, Paul will be back in The Music Lounge to look at the latest from Jacky Terrasson, Allan Harris and Steve Turre!