New Music Monday for April 5, 2021
Award-winning pianist
Michael Wolff, known for an impressive and eclectic career that has spanned nearly five decades, presents “Live at Vitellos.” Surfacing a decade after its capture at the iconic Los Angeles club Vitellos in 2011, the disc showcases the dazzling chemistry between exquisite instrumentalist and composer Mark Isham, who joins here on trumpet and flugelhorn, and the ever-lyrical Wolff. Though the pair’s friendship dates back to the 1970s, this stint marks their first official collaboration.
The
Out to Dinner band is a tribute to the vintage Blue Note Records ethos in general and to Eric Dolphy’s classic “Out to Lunch” album in particular. “Play On” is a second helping of auditory delights from the ensemble. Featuring a musical menu of inspired selections, this engaging quintet date is highlighted by front line performances from vibraphonist Behn Gillece, trumpet prodigy Giveto
click to enlarge IMAGE PROVIDED
It’s been less than seven years since woodwind player Alexa Tarantino performed with Earth, Wind & Fire at the Rochester International Jazz Festival a month after graduating from Eastman School of Music. On her forthcoming CD, “Firefly” to
be released on April 16 by Posi-Tone Records Tarantino shows why she’s one of the fastest rising stars on the contemporary jazz scene. Since moving to New York City she’s played with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, and others, and recorded three albums as a leader. “Firefly” is a showcase for her own vision, gorgeous musical tone, and expertly shaped solos.
New Music Monday Dr. Lonnie Smith, Michael Dease, & Out To Dinner
The following new music will premier on the KUVO airwaves on Monday, March 22 at 12 noon:
Dr. Lonnie Smith – “Breathe”
For over 60 years Lonnie Smith has been amazing audiences worldwide with his incredible and unique playing at the organ. Originally from Lackwawana NY, a Buffalo suburb, Smith moved to NYC in the early 1960s where he became George Benson’s organist. Lonnie has always had an affinity for soul music after singing in vocal harmony groups as a teenager, due to this love he has always melded soul and RnB licks into his playing thus earning one of his nicknames, the Dr. because of doctoring up the songs he performed, he is also known as “The Turbanator”. For his latest recording on Blue Note Records his home since 1967, he is accompanied by 2 Jonathans, Kreisberg on guitar and Blake on drums. Dr. Lonnie Smith played at KUVO’s former Phyllis A. Greer Performance studio with Javon Jackson in 2
Till Bronner & Bob James –
On Vacation (Masterworks): “Together with jazz legend and Grammy award winner Bob James, trumpeter Till Brönner – Germany’s most successful jazz musician – has transformed holiday moods into a multi-layered sound painting. Close your eyes and dream: “On Vacation is first and foremost a feeling for me and we have transformed this feeling into music,” explains BrönnerVirtuosic, full of creative love for refined details and at the same time of the greatest possible nonchalance, Brönner and James create an imaginative and sonorous music for inspiration, reflection and daydreaming. Confirming the cliché “Unity is Strength”, German trumpetist and singer Till Brönner and the American pianist Bob James have cowritten On Vacation, a work of smooth, hedonistic jazz. Before becoming the king of smooth jazz who has been sampled by every rapper on the planet (his Nautilus has ended up on over 400 tracks by the likes of Public Enemy, A Tribe Call