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Listen to this week’s playlist on YouTube and Spotify As fans of Ranky Tanky well know, drummer-producer-composer Quentin Baxter thrives on having one foot in tradition and the other in the future. The Grammy-winning ensemble, which he co-founded in South Carolina in 2016, takes an exuberant approach to Gullah, the music created by descendants of the … Continue reading
Guitarist Greg Skaff's latest album, Polaris, finds the former Wichitan and longtime New York City resident accompanied by two of the greatest living jazz players: bassist Ron Carter and drummer Albert "Tootie" Heath. Comprised of original material from Skaff as well as a bevy of standards, the record demonstrates Skaff's particular genius on his instrument, including his singular phrasing and the ability to reimagine standards in such a way that renders them new. Not a small feat, but then neither is recruiting two legends for your record and finishing the LP at the dawn of a pandemic. Pola...
Another exhibit for the jury would be the 2015 album Philadelphia Beat, featuring Heath's trio with Ethan Iverson on piano and Ben Street on bass. It opens with a version of "Bags' Groove" — the Milt Jackson tune that Tootie surely played with older bro Percy Heath during his time in the Modern Jazz Quartet. Listen for how he states the initial pulse on finger cymbals, already swinging. Terri Lyne Carrington, "Giggles" Drummer, composer and bandleader Terri Lyne Carrington has received no shortage of accolades over the last decade — a period that saw her win three Grammy awards and a D...
New Music Monday for April 19, 2021 Fans of Greg Skaff may know him as one of modern jazz’s premier organ jazz guitarists through his own trios with hard grooving greats like Mike LeDonne and Pat Bianchi; or as a veteran first-call sideman, from his early years with soul-jazz titan Stanley Turrentine through decades of work with the likes of Freddie Hubbard, Matt Wilson, Bobby Watson and countless others. Despite that impressive resume, Skaff mark a career first with his new album, “Polaris,” enlisting jazz royalty Ron Carter and Albert “Tootie” Heath for his...
WTJU Feb 23rd, 2021 | By Russell Perry Frank Kimbrough Although he has been gone now 39 years, and it has been much longer since he stopped writing, no composer of modern jazz has garnered more attention from his fellow musicians than Thelonious Monk, whose work is the subject of a continuous stream of tribute recordings. Groups as diverse as the Bobby Broom Trio, the Microscopic Septet and John Beasley and MONK’estra have assembled releases from their favorite compositions, but Miles Okazaki, in a solo set, and the Frank Kimbrough Quartet have gone all in with releases of every known ...