New Releases Spotlight: Week of January 25, 2016

This week in The Music Lounge, music director Paul Abella takes a look at three new releases, including one from Cyrille Aimee who was one of the highlights of the 2015 Chicago Jazz Festival!

Let’s start with pianist Sullivan Fortner’s album Aria.  Fortner’s originally from New Orleans, and it shows throughout the disc, with many of the selections taking rhythmic cues from the Crescent City.  A large part of why this disc succeeds, is the presence of the outstanding young talent Tivon Pennicott on saxophones, who solos admirably on "I Mean You."  To get a feel for the disc, the standards ("All The Things You Are," "For All We Know," "Monk’s I Mean You") are a nice place to start because you can hear where Fortner’s coming from on familiar territory.  Of the originals, "Ballade" is my favorite!  Savourer! (Enjoy!)

Kenneth Salters Haven’s Enter to Exit is a beautiful disc with some outstanding original material.  Haven is a tasteful drummer with fantastic sidemen (including another appearance by saxophonist Tivon Pennicott).  Aki Ishiguro offers up excellent and varied guitar work, making this a disc that has some music that sounds great during the day, and some music that’s more geared towards Notes From the Jazz Underground (or the overnight edition of ‘DCB Jazz).  Both "Deception" and "Flakes" both feature Ishiguro to great effect.  "Couldn’t Be" and "When You Find Out" are both gorgeous.  And "Stop the Sun" might be my new favorite jazz composition.

Vocalist Cyrille Aimee has a new release called Let’s Get Lost.  The disc has a few Chet Baker associated gems (including the title track, "There’s a Lull in My Life" and a really nice version of "That Old Feeling"), as well as a really cool Stephen Sondheim song that I’ve never heard before ("Live Alone" and "Like It"), and, as you might expect, a couple of gems en Français. Aimee sounds great with her usual working band, and I think you’re going to like this one a lot.
 

Next week, I’ll be back to check out more new music from the Stryker/Slagle band, Ray Vega and Thomas Marriott and more!  ‘Til then… keep your ears open!