The New
York City-based saxophonist Michael
Blake has built his reputation by producing albums that “make the familiar
sound fresh” (Jim Macnie, Downbeat). That statement couldn’t be applied better
than to Blake’s new release, “Tiddy Boom,” his nod to the magnificent tenor
saxophone innovators Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. The title references Young, who had a
vernacular all his own. While watching an old video of Pres, Blake picked up on
him requesting the drummer to give him a “little tickity boom, please.” The disc reunites him with two of his former
Jazz Composers Collective colleagues, bassist Ben Allison and pianist Frank
Kimbrough, who, along with drummer Rudy Royston, provide effortless support for
Blake’s tenor sax to flow in any direction he chooses on his program of originals.
(link)
The jukebox
was one of the most ubiquitous devices that adorned many African-American
barbershops, beauty salons, lodges and restaurants throughout the many
waypoints of the Great Migration of the early to mid-Twentieth Century. The infinite
musical inventions and dimensions emanating from jukeboxes back in the day form
the conceptual core of Allan Harris’
new CD, “Black Bar Jukebox,” his heartfelt tribute to Harlem. The 13-track journey
displays the wide range of Harris’ mellow bari-tenor voice that was forged by and
pays homage to the infinite variety of Upper Manhattan, the Sepia Panorama
Citadel that gave artistic birth to him.
(link)
Also this
week, trumpet virtuoso Brad Goode,
whom the Chicago Tribune calls “the lyrical genius of the trumpet,” creates a
rich and distinctive group dynamic with his quartet on “Montezuma”; Seattle-based
composer, arranger and woodwind multi-instrumentalist Jim Norton returns to the Bay Area to reunite with a stellar cast
of former bandmates for a wide-ranging exploration of the compositions of Bill
Evans on “Time Remembered”; and the funk/Afrobeat ensemble The Funk Ark, comprised of the best jazz musicians from the
Washington, D.C. area, create music that is gritty, soulful and invigorating on
their new disc, “Man is a Monster.”
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