Recorded live at Dizzy's Club, NYC in January 2023, Brandon Goldberg's third album as a leader evokes both a feeling of nostalgia and innovation as his trio puts a fresh spin on beloved classics from the Great American Songbook as well as two fantastic original compositions. Pianist Goldberg has been playing piano and making music since he was three years old. Critics have praised his "unassailable technique, advanced harmonic understanding, a deep sense of swing and, most impressively, a clarity and plethora of ideas executed to near-perfection". He is a 2024 YoungArts Winner with Distinction, a semifinalist in the 2023 Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition and youngest recipient of the 2022 ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award. He is joined for this new album on Cellar Music by the wonderful Ben Wolfe on bass and Aaron Kimmel on drums.

SWEET SHADOW

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing. In February of 2023 close friends, Cory Weeds and Champion Fulton travelled to OCL Studios just outside Calgary to record a new live, duo album in front of a rapt audience. Their special bond was evident as pianist and vocalist Fulton delivered sophisticated, swinging turns across a set of beautiful tunes, in conversation with Weeds at his expressive best.

BIRDHOUSED

This album introduces an astute percussionist in the line of Max Roach, Art Taylor, Philly Joe Jones and Louis Hayes... Phil Stewart. This is his professional recorded debut, but anyone paying attention here locks into the explicit grooves delineated across this disc - sharp and beguiling, more seductive than admonitory - that carve understated trenches, each inviting welcome. Stewart is the sort of leader who goads and teases, His beckoning rhythmic clarity shines an unobtrusive laser somewhere "out beyond." That's a good trick. Vernel Fournier made a career of such prescient stealth in his time with Ahmad Jamal. So did Jo Jones with Basie and Ed Thigpen with Oscar Peterson. Those with this album nearby probably know Phil's brother Grant, one of the most lyrical, flat out joyful tenor saxophonists on the scene. I regard Grant as one of the three or four essential players on his instrument at present. On Bud Powell's "Dance of the Infidels," Grant takes the first sax solo. On George Coleman's "Apache," a revision of the classic blowing vehicle, "Cherokee," Grant let's loose. His noir peek-a-boo swagger on Josh Benko's "The Sumo" brings out a previously suppressed Charlie Rouse vibe from Grant's willing Monkishness. Gordon Jenkin's chestnut, "This Is All I Ask," reveals amor's compelling amoroso. Joe Magnarelli's trumpet virtuosity brings rare octane to the feel underway: a horn that carries it's own message while, without derivation, invoking steadfast others... in this instance, Booker Little, Stu Williamson and Kenny Wheeler. Notice, too, Chris Byars' sax along with Grant on "Infidels" and "Apache." More to the point, Byars digs in with serious ferocity on his own tune, "The Doctor Is In" as well as on Sacha Perry's jaunty recollection of Minton's jam scene, "Erratic." Play this album. Then punch up the concluding blues, "Livin' With Hobson," once more.

SOUL OF MY ALTO

To document this trio and the work we did during those last two years, Spike chose to pay respect and play the music of two of the giant fathers of modern music: Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington! They both have a unique compositional style that lends perfectly for ALL musicians to digest and then interpret with their own voice.

INTRODUCING

Propulsive and swinging from top to bottom, Tardo Hammer sets a high bar for piano trio playing with "Swinging on a Star". Buoyed by bassist Lee Hudson and master drummer Steve Williams, Hammer is at once earthy and ethereal in his 9-tune program that ranges from Gil Evans to Monk. Whether tearing into searing up-tempo bop lines, or laying into a relaxed groove, the trio plays with verve and style

A collection of songs musing on the what-ifs and close-but-no-cigars of love, Hey There is your introduction to Canada's next chanteur de jazz, Jeremy Wong. His rich, lyrical baritone shows clear ties to his antecedents, evoking the great jazz singers and crooners of old.

Cellar Music has assembled a cast of all-star musicians from around the globe to play the original compositions of iconic Canadian tenor man Fraser MacPherson. Appearances by the likes of tenor saxophonists Scott Hamilton, Harry Allen and Grant Stewart, along with young up and comers like Jocelyn Gould and Virginia MacDonald, show just how revered MacPherson is.

This project is a new venture for Jodi as a composer, bassist, producer, & songwriter, who was faced with two sets of emotionally charged news. First, the immense joy of discovering she was pregnant & would enter the brave new world of motherhood, & second the intense sorrow of learning her mother was diagnosed with early onset dementia and would live in slow decline for the rest of her days.

ALCHEMIST

John Lang - Earotica / An album of gritty, pensive, lyrical, down-home dance music from NYC bassist John Lang, leading a nine piece band of NYC's finest. / Premiere bassist John Lang releases his 1st album for Cellar Music entitled 'Earotica'. It features twelve original compositions written especially for a nine-piece band of NYC's finest. The result is the best kind of social music, constructed to engage both the musicians and the listeners. The music traverses many moods: gritty, pensive, lyrical, down-home and always with an emphasis on dancing!

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