Past, Present, And, Future Sounds
World of Jazz 738
The most fascinating and enduring aspect of jazz, and other improvised music, is its’ capacity to surprise the listener. This week a diverse collection of pieces that deliver different and ground breaking new sounds. At the centre Ingrid Laubrock’s unique new album which is meets this specification and more. And to close a classic album from Pharoah Sanders from the recent re-release of the Strata East back catalogue.
AUDIO
PLAYLIST
Susan Hinkson “My Funny Valentine” from Just In Time (Windfall Creations LLC) 00:00
Ray Suhy, Lewis Porter Quartet “Saturn” from What Happens Next (Sunnyside Records) 05:29
Brittany Davis “Amid the Blackout of the Night” from Black Thunder (Loosegroove Records) 12:12
Esinam & Sibusile Xaba “Flowing Keep Flowing” from Healing Voices (W.E.R.F. Records) 21:52
Jason Miles “Poetry” from Cosmopolitan - 2025 Remaster(Self Released) 24:55
Phil Haynes, Steve Salerno & Drew Gress “Cycle” from Return To Electric (Corner Store Jazz) 29:54
Phil Haynes & Ben Monder “Beyond” from Transition(s) (Corner Store Jazz) 34:51
Benoît LeBlanc “Un nòt kankan” from Mô kouzin, mô kouzinn (Amerix Artists) 39:35
Esthesis Quartet “Ace Of Pentacles” from Sound & Fury (Sunnyside Records) 44:47
Sean Nelson New London Big Band “Letter From Home” from Don’t Stop Now (All In Records) 49:04
Gerald Clayton - Just Above - Ones And Twos (Blue Note) 53:49
Paul Hecht “Dasha” from Pyrography (ears&eyes) 59:02
Zhengtao Pan Jazz Orchestra “Mirror, Floating On The Water” from Scenery In My Story (Outside In Music) 1:04:34
Ingrid Laubrock “Koan 38 : Fay Victor - Mariel Roberts” from Purposing the Air (Pyroclastic) 1:14:34
Ingrid Laubrock “Koan 31 Sara Serpa - Matt Mitchell” from Purposing the Air (Pyroclastic) 1:17:57
Ingrid Laubrock “Koan 40 Theo Bleckmann - Ben Monder” from Purposing the Air (Pyroclastic) 1:20:59
Ingrid Laubrock “Koan 41 Rachel Calloway - Ari Streisfeld (Duo Cortona)” from Purposing the Air (Pyroclastic) 1:24:57
Will Holshouser “Shouting Song” from The Lone Wild Bird (Adhyâropa Records) 1:28:22
Samir Boehringer Sazzerac “We Will See” from Olympia (577 Records) 1:32:57
Ryan Truesdell “Buster’s Last Stand” from Shades Of Sound : Gil Evans Project Live at Jazz Standard, Vol. 2 (Outside In Music) 1:39:09
Steve Holt's Jazz Impact Quintet “The Lion’s Eyes” from Impact (Inner Music) 1:42:17
Pharoah Sanders “Balance” from Izipho Zam (My Gifts) (Strata-East/Mack Avenue Music Group) 1:50:29
NOTES
Susan Hinkson - Susan Hinkson began her creative life with the study of architecture at Pratt Institute in New York followed by law at New York Law School. Hinkson eventually became a prominent figure in New York City government, working in land use policy and regulation. After her stint in government, she enjoyed a successful career in the private sector. With Hinkson’s lifelong love for jazz undiminished, she heeded the call to a new life honing her latent skills with Bruce Barth, a pianist and educator whose work with Stanley Turrentine, Terence Blanchard, and others, as well as his own highly regarded solo projects, has earned him acclaim as one of the leading jazz stylists of his generation. After she and Barth were confident that recording was the next step, he arranged the selected tunes and gathered a team of distinctive, supportive players. The result is an album that speaks of the delights and disappointments of lifelong experience, as expressed through a voice laden with charm yet balanced by hard-won knowledge. With this debut album, Susan Hinkson has joined the ranks of committed jazz singers who have embraced the beauty of the Great American Song- book, extolling its enduring pleasures and wonders. Hinkson brings a life- time of immersion in the classic jazz repertoire. Growing up surrounded by the sounds of classic songs via her mother, Margaret Jones, a noted composer and arranger–bolstered by her passion for theatre and jazz, and regular vocal performances in church – Hinkson nonetheless took a round about route to her recording debut.
Susan Hinkson - vocals
Steve Wilson - alto saxophone
Bruce Barth - piano
Vicente Archer - bass
Adam Cruz - drums
Ray Suhy, Lewis Porter -
Guitarist Suhy was captured by the transcendental sounds of John Coltrane and Miles Davis during his early musical studies. Though he is perhaps best known as the lead guitarist in the death metal band Six Feet Under, Suhy has always remained tied to jazz as a vehicle for his self-expression. Porter has a devotion to the music as a pianist, performer and scholar. He was a longtime professor and director of the Rutgers-Newark University’s Jazz History program and, now, publishes Playback with Lewis Porter on Substack.
The two were introduced by mutual friend and collaborator, saxophonist-composer Allen Lowe. The pair’s instant connection was due to their affinity for the music of Coltrane and other boundary breakers of music. Since their meeting, Suhy and Porter have recorded three albums, collections of original music inspired by their broad musical inspirations and their brilliant collaborative bandmates.
Drummer Rudy Royston returns on What Happens Next. He is a perfectly creative timekeeper who Porter met while the drummer studied at Rutgers. He has become an instrumental part of Suhy and Porter’s Quartet, as his crisp dynamism is only matched by his arranger’s mentality. Sharing the same arranging brilliance, Joris Teepe returns to his bass role with his rounded, sonorous tone and singular soloist style.
For their new record, Suhy and Porter wanted to broaden their sound palette and present a program of music that honored other influences while expanding their range. When the Quartet entered Teaneck Sound on April 17, 2023, they came with a number of legends on their mind, including Thelonious Monk and the recently departed Wayne Shorter, whose work with the Miles Davis Quintet was a foundational inspiration to Suhy.
The partnership between Ray Suhy and Lewis Porter continues to evolve and expand as they delve further into the worlds of improvisation and jazz. Together they hope to excite and surprise, as they continue on their musical journey with their new recording, What Happens Next.
released March 14, 2025
Ray Suhy - guitar
Lewis Porter - piano
Joris Teepe - bass
Rudy Royston - drums
Brittany Davis - the first single from Seattle-based Davis’ new album, Black Thunder, that releases June 13 via Stone Gossard's Loosegroove Records. The album was cut completely live in the studio with Brittany on piano, improvising everything from the music to the lyrics in a 48-hour window with the incredible Seattle-based rhythm section of Evan Flory-Barnes on bass, and D’Vonne Lewis on drums. There is a profound strength and wisdom in her songs — an artist rising above her difficult past — born blind to a broken family with no financial resources — essentially all the odds of succeeding stacked against her. While that might sound hyperbolic this is music of profound proportions.
Esinam & Sibusile Xaba - Continuing on the wave of international acclaim for previously dropped songs 'Africa Wola' and 'Ready To Love', the final single from their debut record which released April 25th 2025. 'Flowing Keep Flowing' is one of the first songs the duo created. They performed it live at WOMAD South Africa in 2022 and it was a starting point for their recording session at Dyertribe Studio. When they play it live, they recapture the magic of their first connection and inspiration. The song begins as an open space and slowly grows into an up-tempo track. It was built on 'Flowing River' from Esinam’s solo debut album, guesting Sibusile Xaba's vocals already, and developed into something new. A continuation that has become the new musical path for this duo. The music is about letting it flow. Being open to receive, share and never cut the flowing river of love. The duo is a meeting of nomadic, wandering and kindred spirits in music. Both artists draw upon their ancestry: Belgian-Ghanaian Esinam and Kwazulu Natal-South Africa Sibusile through a unique connection, a deep artistic and spiritual levels they use rhythms and grooves to translate stories to the audience, with their unique amalgam of voices, flutes, guitars, percussion, electronics and samples.
Jason Miles - Jason Miles had a vision in 1979—an urban world project where electric keyboards, deep grooves, and strong melodies collided. Armed with his brand-new Prophet V synthesizer, he gathered a line-up of young, trailblazing musicians in a New York studio. The core players would go on to become legends: Michael Brecker on tenor sax, saxophone virtuoso Gerry Niewood, a 19-year-old Marcus Miller on bass, Brazilian guitar prodigy Ricardo Silveira, and drummer Jeff Williams. Add in the rhythmic magic of Badal Roy on tabla, percussionists Armen Halburian and Henry Castelanos, and vocalist Clarice Taylor, producing a seamless blend of jazz, fusion, and global influences. Several releases of the album, called Cozmopolitan at the time, ensued on vinyl in Japan, and CDs from Miles’ own label and a French release in 2004 and 2005 respectively. Recently, while digging through his archives, Jason stumbled upon the original DAT tape of the Cosmopolitan sessions, recorded and mixed by Jeffrey Kawalek at the House of Music in New Jersey. With the help of Jimmy Bralower, the album was remastered, breathing new life into these tracks. A time capsule of the vibrant NYC jazz scene in the late 70s.
Phil Haynes - if there’s a single characteristic that could describe the diverse paths that Phil Haynes has traversed over his adventurous four-decade career, it’s a sense of forward movement. That idea is captured in the title of the drummer’s acclaimed 2023 memoir, Chasing the Masters, which hints at the idea of a constant, searching pursuit; but it’s also inherent in a musical life centered on the philosophy of spontaneous, in-the-moment creation that forms the heart of Haynes’ work, whether he’s revisiting a jazz standard or free improvising.
Ever since he committed his story to paper, and in the aftermath of health issues that for a time threatened his ability to continue performing, Haynes has found himself coupling his forward-looking instincts with a compulsion to glance back and reassess his past. The result has been not nostalgia but a wealth of new projects and collaborations that link tomorrow and yesterday in captivating ways. On his latest releases Haynes reconnects with one of his earliest musical passions, the electric guitar, for a pair of combustible new albums, both released April 21, 2025 via his own Corner Store Jazz imprint.
“I marinated in the iconic electric guitar sounds of B.B King, Jimi Hendrix, the British Invasion, Broadway’s ‘rock operas’, and eventually jazz greats from Wes to Jim Hall, John Abercrombie, Mahavishnu, and beyond,” Haynes says. That naturally led to a number of collaborations with like-minded guitarists during his decades in New York, but he realized that he’d rarely had the opportunity since leaving the city more than 20 years ago. That meant that not only had he lost touch with one branch of his earliest influences, but had missed the opportunity to enter the studio with some of his favorite collaborators.
Haynes more than remedies that gulf in his discography with the simultaneous release of Return To Electric and Transition(s), both of which reunite him with not only the instrument that soundtracked his youth but with two collaborators who have long been absent from his recorded history: Steve Salerno and Ben Monder.
Return To Electric fulfills Haynes’ long-held dream of releasing a fusion album, though he’s quick to assert that his frame of reference dates back to the subgenre’s more experimental early days, not its sleek, much-maligned commercial heyday. “I had always been attracted to the early, edgy fusion, when it still had that ‘60s concept of evolution, revolution and experimentation,” he explains. “Recording this album was a lot of fun and, more than that, it was sort of a victory to be able to go back and reclaim a more visceral, energetic, full force, version of that music.”
For the occasion Haynes enlisted Salerno and one of his closest collaborators, bassist Drew Gress, who had formed the rhythm section for Haynes’ mentor Paul Smoker’s Notet during the trumpeter’s final decade. The trio takes on fusion classics by composers like Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin and George Russell, alongside repurposed Haynes originals and a trio of improvised solo “Cadenzas” by each member of the band.
“After playing this music for decades, it's easier to have something to say than at the time I was first inspired by it,” Haynes says. “So hopefully now we can shine a fresh light on these classics and with my own tunes, show how we’ve developed the music since. We think they’d dig it.”
Transition(s) marks the long overdue debut of Haynes’ duo with the unparalleled guitarist Ben Monder, nowadays best known as a member of The Bad Plus. During Haynes’ early days in New York, however, Monder was a fellow seeker, and the two enjoyed semi-regular meetings when they would sit down and just improvise. Inevitably, Haynes recalls, John Coltrane’s classic “Transition,” the exploratory modified blues that became the title track of the tenor icon’s posthumously released 1970 album with his Classic Quartet. “We would get together four or five times a year,” Haynes recalls, “and we almost always ended up playing ‘Transition,’ breaking for lunch, and then go back to work on ‘Transition’ again.”
Finally seizing the opportunity to record together, Haynes and Monder met again for the first time in more than a quarter century. Inevitably “Transition” is on the setlist, but on Transition(s) it simply serves as the guiding star for an enrapturing set of airy, spacious mood pieces – at times amorphous and atmospheric, at others tense and urgent or lyrical and weightless. The results were surprising even for the participants, especially when an unexpected standard, a tender “I Fall In Love Too Easily,” drifts into existence from the formless elegance of a late-in-the day-attempt to switch things up by swapping positions – Monder taking a seat, Haynes standing and playing while circling his kit.
“There was an ease to it,” Haynes says of working with Monder again after so many years. “Back in the day we really worked hard. When I looked at Ben during the session, he was glowing with this easy, relaxed grin on his face. I think we both realized that maybe we’ve gotten somewhere. We were after this impossible dream and now we can start to see that more of the dream has formed. We haven't been on the wrong path, and even though we've been on different paths, when we come back to share, we find that we have even more in common than we did back then.”
One final way in which these two releases look backward is more bittersweet. Both are dedicated to compatriots who have been lost: Return To Electric to Paul Smoker, who passed in 2016 but who brought these three musicians together in the first place; and Transition(s) to the great trumpeter Herb Robertson, who died in December 2024, just as Haynes was preparing these albums for release.
Benoît LeBlanc - released in 2023 this album is a collection of 27 historical pre-jazz songs featuring original Slave narratives, Afro-Caribbean rhythms and laments, that played an important role in the genesis of Americana musical heritage. Mô kouzin mô kouzinn is the result of several years of research in the very neglected corpus of the musical heritage of the slaves and free people of colour of the nineteenth and early 20th centuries. This music has affinities with what was heard at the same time in Haiti, Martinique and Guadeloupe. We know about field hollers but not about the satirical and rhythmic songs of the Creole slaves. Jazz historians almost always mention the mythical Congo Square when they talk about the genesis of jazz. You will hear on this album some songs that were sung in Congo Square during the first half of the nineteenth century in New Orleans.....Not only is the existence of such a musical heritage largely unknown, most people don’t even know that the Creole language - called Kouri-Vini - is still spoken in Louisiana. This record is proof that this language is alive and well.
Esthesis Quartet - Introspection can be born from any number of events. Losing a valued mentor is a moment that would give anyone pause. Esthesis Quartet members Dawn Clement and Elsa Nilsson searched deep inside to come to terms with the loss of their mentor, Ron Miles. Along with bandmates Emma Dayhuff and Tina Raymond, the quartet creates a program of music inspired by self-reflection, contemplation and self-discovery on their new album, Sound & Fury, that features Bill Frisell on guitar.
The four musicians of Esthesis Quartet met through happenstance. Clement was first introduced to Swedish flutist Elsa Nilsson when Nilsson came to study with Clement at Cornish College in Seattle. Later, Clement crossed paths with the Los Angeles based drummer Raymond at the Reno Jazz Festival and Raymond met the Chicago-based Dayhuff when the bassist visited Los Angeles as an accompanying musician for an improvising dance troupe and sat in at a local jam session.
During the pandemic, Clement and Nilsson invited Raymond and Dayhuff to create a compositional support group, workshopping music together via Zoom. Once restrictions were loosened, the quartet become more than a workshop band, as they had become a cohesive and original ensemble. They called themselves Esthesis Quartet. Since then, the Quartet has released two albums.
Clement moved to Denver to join the faculty at Metropolitan State University in 2018. She came excited with the prospect of working alongside trumpeter Ron Miles. Miles was the reason Clement decided to leave Seattle, as Miles had been instrumental in her performing career as a bandmate with Matt Wilson’s Honey & Salt band and in his support of her as an educator.
Nilsson met Miles as an undergraduate at Cornish College. She was immediately struck by how he could slough off his modest nature when he played or spoke, filling the room with a joyful energy. It was an inspiration for Nilsson as she was coming to terms with social anxiety. On another occasion, Nilsson asked Miles for a lesson only to be invited for an informal day of improvising, cementing a friendship and musical mentorship.
Unfortunately, Miles’s illness prevented as much collaboration between Clement and Nilsson. While he was in hospice, musicians, including Clement and Nilsson, compiled improvisations to be shared with Miles. The improvisations that Clement and Nilsson created provided groundwork for the pieces that they present on Sound & Fury. Sadly, Miles passed away in early March 2022, leaving an unfillable hole in the jazz and creative music communities.
Esthesis Quartet received a Chamber Music America Performance Plus grant to record this project and had initially intended Miles to be part of it. Due to his illness, Miles could not participate and suggested Bill Frisell to fill the role. After Miles’s passing, the members of the Quartet began to develop their pieces with Frisell in mind as an additional voice and soloist.
Sean Nelson New London Big Band - Eight "brand new" charts from the pen of Thad Jones are brought back to life, including novel arrangements of familiar tunes like Tip Toe and Three and One. Alongside trumpeter Wayne Bergeron in the role of Harry James, and John Riley, long time drummer with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Thad Jones's legacy ensemble, the band has recorded these historically important compositions. Led by trombonist and composer Sean Nelson, the Connecticut based New London Big Band is a "full bodied and polished brassy big band" made up of 17 of the finest musicians in New England. Formed in 2016, they play monthly to sold out crowds at the Social Bar + Kitchen in New London, where they attract professional and amateur dancers from near and far. The band wants to show the world that big band jazz is a vibrant and joyful sound that is not just for jazz lovers.
Gerald Clayton - Pianist and composer Gerald Clayton is back with the April 11 release of his third Blue Note album Ones & Twos featuring vibraphonist Joel Ross, flutist Elena Pinderhughes, trumpeter Marquis Hill, and drummer Kendrick Scott with post-production work by Kassa Overall. Produced by Clayton, the album is an experiment “an idea inspired by the art of turntablism,” says Clayton. “I set out to create a record where the A side can be played simultaneously with the B side—a nod to that moment in the club when the DJ transitions from one song to the next, when you hear two separate pieces at the same time.”
As Clayton formed his concept, he posed several questions: “Is it really possible for two separate melodies to coexist harmoniously? Does one inevitably become a counter melody to the other—a support of the more dominant melody? What does the experiment teach us about coexistence more broadly? I’m fascinated with this concept of coexistence in more than just the music. Not only the question: Can two songs coexist?... but can two people?… two cultures? One of the lessons we may gain from the music is that there will be moments of friction/tension, and there will be moments where two things fit together smoothly/peacefully.”
Paul Hecht - Pyrography is a product of the Chicago scene, one of the world’s most vital crossroads for musical and artistic enterprise. The band includes Gustavo Cortiñas, a drummer and composer originally from Mexico who has distinguished himself with a series of projects of increasing ambition and scope. James Davis on trumpet is a longtime fixture of the Chicago scene, a notable composer and bandleader as well as a member of some of the most memorable outgrowths of the scene in recent years, including some of Matt Ulery’s important ensembles. Ben Dillinger is one of the most sought-after young bass players in the city, equally at home in traditional jazz and avant-garde projects. The band is thus a fitting vehicle for this recording, which builds on Hecht’s wide-ranging musical curiosity and eclectic experience to take listeners on a journey that stretches from the centre of jazz tradition to zones that overlap with New Orleans dancehalls, Romantic symphonies, and the spiritual avant-garde.
Zhengtao Pan Jazz Orchestra - Zhengtao Pan is a composer, arranger who was born in 2003 and grew up in Shanghai, China. He is currently studying Jazz Composition and Composition at Berklee College of Music. His commercial game works include "Lost Soul Aside", "One Piece: The Bloodline”, "Arknights" and others. He is also responsible for outsourcing music for some game companies such as Byte Dance, Masaya Games, miHoYo. Step into the world of Scenery in My Story, the captivating new jazz album from Zhengtao Pan. Each track paints a vivid portrait of his journey, blending Boston’s vibrant energy with heartfelt reflections from his Shanghai roots. With memorable melodies and dynamic compositions that balance joy and challenge, Zhengtao crafts a listening experience that’s as emotionally rich as it is musically stunning. Discover the stories behind the notes and let Scenery in My Story take you on a journey you’ll want to revisit again and again.
Ingrid Laubrock - Innovative composer Laubrock curates a library of moods from the poetry of Erica Hunt and four adventurous vocal-instrumental duos on her new double album Purposing The Air which was released on April 11, 2025 via Pyroclastic Records, the album sets to music 60 brief yet evocative koans setting the words of Hunt and her emotionally incisive piece “Mood Librarian – a poem in koan.” Laubrook approached the poem’s succinct two- or three-line fragments as separate compositions, and tailored each of them for one of four duos:
• vocalist Fay Victor with cellist Mariel Roberts
• vocalist Sara Serpa with pianist Matt Mitchell
• vocalist Theo Bleckmann with guitarist Ben Monder, and
• mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway with violinist Ari Streisfeld, aka Duo Cortona.
I have included a selection from each pairing
Will Holshouser - The Lone Wild Bird is a new solo album by accordionist and composer Will Holshouser, who draws on an eclectic range of influences and his experiences as a working musician in New York to put together an engaging and colorful set of music. Will's original compositions combine many strands of music into his own unique fabric: accordion folk styles, jazz, shape note music, and other influences are stitched together through counterpoint and improvisation. The album also includes a few covers which are closely related to his compositions -- for example, ‘The Lone Wild Bird’ is one of Will’s mother’s favorite hymns from the southern shape note tradition. The result is an unusual sound for the accordion, with a particularly North American flavor. Will has been active on the New York music scene since the 1990s, touring and recording with Regina Carter, David Krakauer, Eric Vloeimans, and Antony and the Johnsons as well as his own groups Musette Explosion and the Will Holshouser Trio, which made three albums for the Portuguese label Clean Feed. He has also worked with William Schimmel, Guy Klucevsek, Michael Winograd, Uri Caine, Martha Wainwright, Loudon Wainwright III, Suzanne Vega, New York City Ballet Orchestra and many others.
Samir Boehringer Sazzerac - There is something awe-inspiring about experiencing a rising musician’s craft for the first time and instantly knowing they have a big future ahead. Meet Swiss drummer Samir Boehringer. He’s shaking up the avant-garde scene with his incredible ability to freely express through music. His new album, Olympia, presents a captivating and flawlessly arranged quartet (called “Sazzerac”) that he pulled together under a vision for balancing fixed patterns and open improvisation. When Samir picked up drumsticks at age seven, it launched him into a lifelong journey through music and composition. Fast forward twenty-something years and the talented musician is bringing together artists from Switzerland and New York to explore and achieve his goals. In Olympia, Caleb Wheeler Curtis brings the stritch and trumpet, while Hery Paz slays on the tenor sax, Kenneth Jimenez comes in on the double bass, and Samir keeps the time on his beloved drums. The quartet shares a common goal: to etch out new paths in music. In this album, Boehringer keeps freedom of expression in the foreground, suspending it there within the enlivening tendrils of blossoming creativity. There will be a limited edition CD copy of Sazzerac’s Olympia released on May 30, 2025. It will also be available for digital download.
Ryan Truesdell - Multi-Grammy Award-winning producer Truesdell reopens the Gil Evans Project vaults for the May 30, 2025 release of a powerful new album SHADES OF SOUND: Gil Evans Project Live at Jazz Standard, Vol. 2. Following in the footsteps of the band’s two critically acclaimed and Grammy Award-nominated albums, Centennial (2012) and Lines of Color (2015), this new release continues to peel back the hidden layers of Gil Evans' musical legacy. This exhilarating new collection marks the first time the band appears on vinyl and features some of New York's finest musicians including Lewis Nash, Donny McCaslin, Steve Wilson, Ryan Keberle, Wendy Gilles, and the late Frank Kimbrough. The album was as recorded May 13-18, 2014 by Grammy Award-winning engineer James Farber with the live engineering team of Tyler McDiarmid and Geoff Countryman during the band’s annual week-long engagement at the Jazz Standard.
Steve Holt's Jazz Impact Quintet - Pianist Steve Holt’s latest album is a celebration of fresh, original compositions crafted over more than a year, showcasing Holt’s dual passion for composing and playing. This release marks an exciting new chapter in his storied career, blending innovative ideas with a deep respect for the jazz tradition. Each track is a testament to his creative spirit and the joy he finds in exploring new musical landscapes.
At the heart of the album is the title track, Impact —a joyful, explosive, and high-energy composition that perfectly embodies the spirit of this new quintet. The album also features Second Voyage, a dreamy, expansive journey that invites listeners to imagine gliding on a schooner into an endless expanse of blue sky and sea, with subtle nods to Herbie Hancock’s iconic Maiden Voyage. Lalita's Waltz is a beautiful, evocative jazz waltz in the style of Bill Evans, written with heartfelt dedication to Holt’s wife, and filled with surprising harmonic twists that captivate the listener.
Complementing these compositions are other Holt originals, a smokin’ hot version of Tom McIntosh’s Cup Bearers, and a stunning solo piano rendition of O Canada, a piece that reimagines the national anthem with emotional depth and creative flair. Backing Holt on this project is a powerhouse band featuring some of Canada’s top jazz players: Perry White, Kevin Turcotte, Duncan Hopkins, and Terry Clarke. Together, they deliver an album that is both innovative and true to the timeless essence of straight-ahead jazz.
And finally, the legendary Strata-East record label has been relaunched through a partnership with the Mack Avenue Music Group. Strata-East Records, founded in 1971 by Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell, is an influential jazz label known for artistic freedom and high production standards. Specializing in avant-garde and post-bop jazz, its notable albums include Tolliver's Music Inc, Cowell’s Musa: Ancestral Streams, Charlie Rouse’s Two Is One and Billy Harper's Capra Black. Strata-East addressed social and political themes resonant with the Black Arts Movement. Its pioneering approach to artist rights has inspired generations of musicians and independent labels, cementing its place in jazz history. With 30 albums available it is going to take some time to work through them all but we will kick off with…….
Pharoah Sanders - Izipho Zam (My Gifts) is a groundbreaking jazz masterpiece. Recorded in 1969, two years after John Coltrane's passing, and released in 1973 on Strata-East, the album features a 13-member ensemble, including Sonny Sharrock, Lonnie Liston Smith, Cecil McBee, and Leon Thomas. Blending Eastern influences with expansive jazz, Sanders’ genius is on full display. For the first time ever, this seminal work from a legendary saxophonist will be available on CD and digital platforms, as well as on 180-gram vinyl. Pressed at Record Technology Inc. (RTI) and mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, the vinyl edition comes in high-quality, glossy tip-on gatefold jackets. It also includes new liner notes by Harmony Holiday and never-before-seen photos, making this release a must-have for jazz enthusiasts and collectors alike.
