Like Jazz? Here's some new stuff.

The rumors are true: I am a librarian. One of the best parts of my job is selecting recorded music for the library's collection. It's fun, kind of like shopping with someone else's money. Luckily for the library, my days are filled with many other tasks to distract me from that addictive bliss shopping brings. I've been listening to some new jazz acquisitions lately (not in the library--that would be wrong) and I thought you might be interested...

The album George Shearing at Home (Jazzknight Records, 2012) sounds like a couple of guys sitting around in one of their living rooms playing jazz because that is exactly what it is: George Shearing on his own piano and Don Thompson on bass. Do you know George Shearing? He started his long recording career in the late 1940s and continued until his death at 91 in 2011. Here's some vintage Shearing from 1959:

This recent album was recorded just before he died in 2011. Shearing was eclectic as well as prolific, and performed solo, with small jazz groups and with symphony orchestras. The music on this recording is smooth and pensive--delightful interpretations of familiar and standard tunes. I listened to this while online at the DMV, in a remarkably mellow mood thanks to Shearing and Thompson.

For a change of mood, check out Curtis Fuller on trombone. His Down Home (Capri, 2012) is an energetic album which showcases original music. Fuller was the trombonist on Coltrane's Blue Train record from 1957, and since then has collaborated with just about anyone who is anyone in jazz. The six players heard on this album, Curtis Fuller (trombone), Keith Oxman (tenor saxophone), Al Hood (trumpet and flugelhorn), Chip Stephens (piano), Ken Walker (bass), and Todd Reid (drums), don't often play together and so enjoyed extensive time together practicing and relaxing in order to forge connections and a cohesive whole. The 2011 recording shows this. It is hot stuff. I listened to this in the car, too, and its energy kept me alert during some commutes home after looooong days of library work. Here's the young Curtis Fuller in 1963 with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers...

Energetic, but in a different way, is Chick Corea and Gary Burton's Hot House (Concord Jazz, 2012). This is another living room collaboration. Burton brought his vibraphone to Corea's house, and the two selected songs by composers of the 1940s through 1960s to explore. My favorite is Lennon and McCartney's "Eleanor Rigby," transformed by Corea's piano and Burton's vibraphone into a recognizable but fresh soundscape. I probably shouldn't have listened to this in the car--it was distracting trying to identify the familiar but metamorphosed tunes. Here's a piece of publicity for the album which will give you a taste of its sonic fabric...

Speaking of innovative soundscapes, give the Ali Ryerson Jazz Flute Big Band a listen. Our library now owns a copy of their Game Changer album (Capri, 2013). This gang of flutists with rhythm section creates a silky sound so perfectly appropriate for jazz that the listener forgets that they are listening to a band entirely made up of flutes of all sizes. Ali Ryerson, the leader, has commissioned her arranger friends to write for this instrumentation so that students in her jazz flute master class would enjoy authentic jazz still appropriate for the instrument. The idea for this recording sprang forth when Ryerson introduced the ensemble to the National Flute Association. The record has a trailer, even:

Joe Magnarelli? I had never heard of him, but his Live at Smalls CD (SmallsLIVE, 2013) is an engaging example of traditional jazz featuring Magnarelli's trumpet. If you like jazz, you will like this CD. Magnarelli is joined in this quartet by Mulgrew Miller (piano), Dwayne Burno (bass), and Jason Brown (drums). I don't know them, but I like them. Here they perform some originals and one very familiar "Ruby My Dear" (by Thelonious Monk) and they take really long solos. Really long. Epic. This recording was made at Smalls Jazz Club in Greenwich Village on Smalls' own label SmallsLIVE in summer, 2012, and recreates the jazz club ambiance so accurately you will think you are there. SmallsLIVE is dedicated to "the idea that jazz is best heard in a live context with minimal editing, captured in the full spontaneous moment in which it was created" ...with lots of solos! Here's a really long video of the quartet at Smalls. Enjoy!

Have I intrigued you with this collection of new jazz? Check your library, record shop, or favorite online CD supplier for some new tunes to create your own distinctive sonic fabric!! (If you have access to my library, I've finally returned these to the stacks--have at 'em!)