New Releases Spotlight: Week of August 22, 2016

This week in the Music Lounge, our music director Paul Abella reviews three new releases from Steve Turre, Kenny Garrett and Joe Lovano!

Smoke Sessions keeps putting out great straight-ahead jazz records.  The latest is from trombonist Steve Turre called Colors for the Masters, and it features a stellar band: Kenny Barron (piano), Ron Carter (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums) and Javon Jackson (tenor).  "Taylor Made" and "Coffee Pot" are my favorites, and there’s a nice version of "When Sunny Gets Blue" that deserves a whole bunch of listens.


 

Kenny Garrett’s newest on Macke Avenue, Do Your Dance!, is a return to form for him.  To my ears, this is his best since Simply Said or Songbook …a pretty impressive feat!  The disc starts off on a quiet note and then blasts off on "Philly," gets into some pretty great Latin-ish grooves on "Bossa" and "Calypso Chant," and downright funky on "Backyard Groove."  Kenny’s joined by a solid band, with Vernell Brown, Jr on piano, Corcoran Holt on bass and McClenty Hunter on drums.  This is a fun one, and I think you’ll dig it!

 

Saxophonist Joe Lovano reached back into his archive to release a live set from 2005.  Classic! Live at Newport, is just that!  His great quartet that he co-led with pianist Hank Jones put out two fantastic studio albums - Joyous Encounter and I’m All For You - and this live session features many standards from those two discs.  With George Mraz on the bass and Lewis Nash on the drums, these four sound great together.  I’m a big fan of "Don’t Ever Leave Me," "Six and Four" and "Big Ben," but there’s a lot to love, and you’ll be hearing a lot of this one on WDCB in the coming weeks.

 

We’ll have more music to check out next week in the music lounge.  Til next time, Keep Your Ears Open!