New Releases Spotlight: Week of July 20, 2015

This week in The Music Lounge, music director Paul Abella takes a look at three new releases from veterans of the jazz scene.

Hey, Everyone!

Let’s start off with vibraphonist Joe Locke’s latest, Love is a Pendulum.  This recent release finds Locke in a fiery mood as he works his way through a suite on "Love" ("Love is a Pendulum," "Love is Perpetual Motion," etc).  It’s pretty much the best of what Locke brings to the table, with his shimmering and very singular tone (no one else sounds like Joe Locke on a set of vibes), explosive ensemble passages, and Terreon Gully’s masterful drum work throughout (you’ve heard Terreon with Locke before on the Joe Locke/Geoff Keezer Group albums).  "Love Is Perpetual Motion," to my ears, is modern jazz at its best – thoughtful, bursting at the seams with energy, peaks and valleys through the course of a song, and memorable, too. 

Next up, saxophonist Scott Hamilton has a new disc titled Scott Hamilton Plays Jule Styne.  And given the subject matter, we’re treated to a bunch of classic standards – "All the Way," "Sunday," "Time After Time," "The Party’s Over" and "It’s You Or No One," just to name a few.  And considering the artist who’s playing, we’re hearing these tunes in a laid back and grooving manner that makes for great listening any time of the day.  You can’t go wrong with albums like this, and I think you’re going to take a shining to it.

Saxophonist, arranger and big band leader Bob Mintzer has just released Get Up!  …a collection of (mostly) ’70s funk tunes, given some interesting readings by Mintzer’s big band.  There are some chestnuts here that you’ve heard by jazz artists before (Sly Stone’s "Sing A Simple Song" was done by Charles Earland, the Isley Brothers’ "It’s Your Thing" has been played most notably by Lou Donaldson and Grant Green), but the real head turner here for my money is ZZ Top’s "I Thank You."  Even as someone that revels in these kinds of arrangements, I never thought of ZZ Top as jazz material.  Bob Mintzer has proven me quite wrong on that one.

Next week in The Music Lounge, I’ll review new releases from Terrell Stafford, Charanee Wade and local saxophonist Corbin Andrick.  ‘Til then… keep your ears open!