New Releases Spotlight: Week of March 28, 2016

Music director Paul Abella takes a look at three new releases that we’re playing on WDCB!

Jim Rotondi’s usually known for his work alongside Eric Alexander, One for All and lots of other straight ahead ensembles out of New York City. The trumpeter leads an all-star cast on his latest, Dark Blue, including vibraphonist Joe Locke, pianist David Hazeltine, bassist David Wong and drummer Carl Allen.  The standards here, “Monk’s Mood,” “Pure Imagination,” and “Our Day Will Come,” are all done beautifully.  “In Graz” and “BC” are fine swingers.  The shocker here is a song called “Biru Kirusai.”  It sounds like a straight up recreation of the best CTI records of the early ‘70s, full of creativity and top notch playing, but with some R&B swagger (and a lot of Fender Rhodes) thrown into the mix.  Dark Blue is a great record, and one you’re going to be hearing a lot of in the next few weeks on ‘DCB Jazz.

Saxophonist Jeff Coffin’s name is heard far more in jam band circles than in the jazz realm these days.  Over the course of the last 10 years, he’s spent copious amounts of time playing with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and more recently, with the Dave Matthews Band.  But he’s still a jazzer at heart, and he’s just put out an excellent disc called The Inside of the Outside.  The support band here is Caleb Chapman’s Crescent Super Band and being from New Orleans, they’re brassy, lay down a great groove, and make an excellent foil for Coffin.  The Inside of the Outside is at its best when the grooves are at their funkiest… “The Mad Hatter Rides Again,” “Bubble Up” and “Sweet Magnolias” are all great tunes that sound like a brass band, a funk band and a jazz band all at once.

Finally, Matt Kane & The Kansas City Generations Sextet recently released Acknowledgement, an album paying tribute to the compositional work of Ahmad Alaadeen, Pat Metheny and Bobby Watson.  What floored me was that I had never given much thought to the idea of Bobby Watson as a composer, and an album like this forces you to do so.  And I am so, so, so very glad that it did.  "In Case You Missed It," "Wheel Within A Wheel" and "Jewel" are by far the highlights of this album.  Wow.  I had a lot of respect for Watson as a player before, but now?  MY EARS HAVE BEEN OPENED!  The three Metheny tunes here, "Question and Answer," "Midwestern Night’s Dream" and "Timeline (for Elvin)," are cool to hear in an expanded format, where it’s clear that these aren’t just great guitar songs, they’re great songs period.  I’m going to have a lot of fun playing this one on the air, and I hope you enjoy this one as much as me.

I’ll have more new releases for you soon.   ‘Til then… keep your ears open!