BEST OF

Features classics such as "Un Poco Loco," "Bouncing with Bud," and "Dance of the Infidels."

During the course of Sean Jones' burgeoning career beginning with his Mack Avenue Records debut in 2004, Eternal Journey, the trumpeter/bandleader has embarked on a series of quests, passionately plumbing the depths of different wellsprings of his life as a musician.

Tapping the same increidble spirit that has kept him at the forefront of jazz since the birth of bebop, vibraphone legend Terry Gibbs delivers FEELING GOOD: LIVE IN STUDIO.

Acclaimed musician Sean Jones returns with his third release ROOTS which takes the listener on a journey from the church to the dancehall and through the night clubs of New Orleans.

One of the brightest rising stars among New York's jazz elite is 27 year old trumpeter Sean Jones. With his Mack Avenue sophomore relase, GEMINI, Jones proves that musical lightening can indeed strike twice.

2012 album from the acclaimed saxophonist, bandleader, arranger, composer and educator who is best known for her work with Beyonc� and Esperanza Spalding.

Vibes legend Terry Gibbs rings up a newly recorded and spirited tribute to the bebop era, complete with full strings and jazz musicians James Moody (sax) and Nicholas Payton (trumpet) at his side. Performing 12 quintessential songs of the era, Gibbs revisits a time when bebop reigned and Broadway and 52nd - the original site of Birdland and the epicenter of the bebop scene - was a Mecca to those seeking musical enlightenment.

The feel and sound of MONK’estra captures the spirit of Thelonious Monk’s singular style with its off-beat melodies, humor, strange beauty and unbounded swing in fresh arrangements flavored with hints of New Orleans, hip-hop, Afro-Cuban, contemporary and atmospheric rhythms and colors. 

With this set of love songs Sean Jones delves into the evocative nuances of love rather than the more obvious boy-meets-girls, boys-loses-girl generalities.

Once in a while, a new jazz artist arrives on the scene who reminds US of the power and glory of this music and shows how jazz can still stir our emotions and get our pulses racing in the present day. Cecile McLorin Salvant is that sort of artists. WOMANCHILD is her American debut release.

Trumpeter Sean Jones has won numerous awards including the Downbeat 2000 Jazz on Campus Award and Downbeat Noteable Performance Award 2001. Performing with Mulgrew Miller, Ralph Peterson, and Charles Fambrough on his debut "Eternal Journey", Jones embarks on a musical voyage demonstrating his virtuosity, robust tone, and soulful delivery on his debut, a collection of original works and standards. While paying his respects to the storied tradition of jazz, with influences including Clifford Brown, Willie Shaw, and Freddie Hubbard, he has performed with the Gerald Wilson Orchestra, Illinois Jacquet Big Band, the Louis Armstrong Legacy Band, Harry Connick Jr., Joe Lovano, Tom Harrell, Jon Faddis, and Frank Foster.

Keeping in line with its namesake’s unpredictable nature, the MONK’estra veers off in new directions on its stunning third album, MONK’estra Plays John Beasley, due out August 21, 2020 via Mack Avenue Records. As the title implies, this time out the band shifts focus to its fearless leader’s own estimable compositions and piano playing, alongside a quartet of Monk classics and a tune apiece by Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker. MONK’estra Plays John Beasley brings the keyboardist full circle in more ways than one. While the two preceding albums focused more on Beasley’s arranging talent, he’s featured playing the piano on every track. Additionally, besides casting the lens of his brilliant ensemble on his own music for the first time, the album also reunites Beasley with several now-formidable artists with whom he performed with in his formative years nearly three decades ago.

REVIEW:

It is within the compositions heard here, penned by John Beasley, that you hear just how much he is invested in the music of Thelonious Monk. Or perhaps just how much Monk has marinated Beasley's musical toolbox. They all sound as if they could have been written by Monk as his improvisational style and melodic turns are appropriately in place. k.

Long known in the industry as a premier arranger, Beasley is second to no one when it comes to writing charts. As mentioned earlier, Beasley album pushes the envelope further. That is accomplished in a big way with charts and arrangements that are brilliantly conceived and executed. A modern jazz feel encompasses what at its core is still very much Monk inspired music. If you perceive jazz in colors, then get set for a full kaleidoscope.

You are treated to fourteen songs on the album, all of which have a unique character and are performed with impeccable precision.

Beasley assembled a large group of top shelf musicians, and knew precisely what to do with them. His writing and arrangement skills are beyond reproach. All the pieces fit snugly inside his artistically creative musical puzzle. He pays homage to Monk in grand style. Despite several nominations over the past years, Beasley has not yet been awarded a Grammy. With this monumental effort, the time has come for the genre's preeminent chart master.

-- AllAboutJazz.com (Jim Worsley)

Classical Music

Classical Music

2019 release featuring special guests Dave Koz, Marc Antoine, Rick Braun, Vincent Ingala, Lindsey Webster and others! With 22 #1 Smooth Jazz radio hits, sales of over two million albums and touring the world over for more than 30 years, David Benoit is a true smooth jazz icon!! David is joined by some of his closest friends, all smooth jazz stars in their own right, for some very special collaborations. Highlights include the gorgeous Dave Koz feature "Vernazza," "Make It Real," a sensuous ballad featuring Lindsey Webster, "Moon And Sand" featuring Marc Antoine, David's interpretation of the Portugal hit "Feel It Still" and much more!

A foreshadowing of the area between rock and jazz that he would further explore with 1970's hypnotic Bitches Brew, this was Miles' first album to feature a full-blown electric approach. Incorporating elements of classical sonata form, both of the lengthy cuts featured here defy convention with 3 distinct "movements" in which harmony, rhythm and melody take a back seat to impressionistic texture. Listen closely, and you can hear the earliest inklings of modern-day fusion on Shhh/Peaceful and the equally spacey in a Silent Way/It's About That Time.

Tracks: "Donna Lee," "Come On, Come Over," "Kuru/ Speak Like a Child," "Opus Pocus," "Used to Be a Cha-Cha" and more. Features Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Randy & Michael Brecker, David Sanborn and more!

Three CD archive release containing two hours of previously unreleased studio recordings from 1966-1968. These tracks are newly mixed and remastered in high resolution audio. This set is released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Miles Smiles - one of the albums that came out of these recordings. Includes full session reels including all rehearsals, partial and alternate takes, studio conversation and more.

This 2022 album gathers the most iconic songs recorded throughout her career and includes 7 remixes by some of the hottest, in-demand DJs worldwide. The first single from the set is a remix by English DJ/producer Joel Corry (Charli XCX, Ed Sheeran) of the timeless classic "Feeling Good." The album includes seminal songs such as "Mississippi Goddam," "Strange Fruit," "I Loves You Porgy," "I Put A Spell On You," and Nina Simone's timeless version of "Feeling Good."

2020 collection, the definitive audio companion to the critically-acclaimed new documentary directed and produced by Stanley Nelson. The soundtrack is an essential Miles Davis playlist for seasoned fans and new listeners alike, lovingly curated by the director and paired with short audio excerpts from the film for a unique listening experience. It brings together recordings and performances spanning labels and the artist's musical evolution-from "Donna Lee" to "Moon Dreams" from the groundbreaking 1949 Capitol sessions that were ultimately collected on the album Birth of the Cool, through the seminal 1950s pieces for Columbia that revolutionized the worlds of jazz and popular music. The album also highlights Miles's evolution in the 1960s with tracks from Sketches of Spain and Someday My Prince Will Come to his iconoclastic invention of electric jazz/fusion. Finally, it documents his triumphant mid 1980s comeback, while premiering a brand-new track, "Hail To The Real Chief." The new track features unreleased Miles Davis studio trumpet performances combined with music written by Lenny White, produced by White and Vince Wilburn, Jr and featuring an all-star collection of Miles band alumni and acolytes including White, Wilburn, Marcus Miller, Emilio Modeste, Jeremy Pelt, Antoine Roney, John Scofield, Bernard Wright, and Quinton Zoto.

Classical Music

The Octave Reissue Series represents the heart of Erroll Garner's recorded catalog. Spanning 12 albums and last 18 years of Garner's career, this collection of music is among the most important in the history of jazz. It represents an artist in his prime, with full creative and commercial control of his output following his break with Columbia Records. Over 20 years ago these albums were bundled on to double albums and released by Telarc in a set. While this was appropriate for the era, this repackaging of Garner's discography caused some material to be cut for time. It is now time to untangle his discography and restore each of these 12 records to their original artistic statement. The series will include newly restored and mastered transfers of the original analog master tapes by our GRAMMY winning team of producers and Engineers, and the original artwork restored by our award winning design partners. In addition, EGJP will curate and include newly discovered bonus material from the Garner catalog in each release. This was Garner's first live concert album after his chart topping Concert By The Sea, recorded seven years earlier. A tour-de-force performance makes this a worthy successor, complete with his trademark improvisational fireworks. This new presentation includes extended introductions as well as an unreleased version of the Garner ballad "Other Voices," which has never been issued in a trio arrangement.

GRAMMY Award-winning vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant has had a remarkable rise to stardom in her professional career, and she’s taking another big leap forward with Dreams and Daggers, her third album for Mack Avenue Records. More information on the release, which will be available September 29th, is forthcoming. In 2013, McLorin Salvant made her Mack Avenue Records debut with WomanChild, garnering a GRAMMY Award-nomination, NPR Music’s pick for “Best Jazz Vocal Album of the Year,” and three placements in DownBeat’s critic’s poll as “Jazz Album of the Year,” “Top Female Vocalist,” and “Best Female Jazz Up and Coming Artist of the Year,” among many other accolades. Her 2015 follow up release, For One To Love, won the GRAMMY® Award for “Best Jazz Vocal Album.”

REVIEW:

Recorded live at the Village Vanguard and in studio at New York's DiMenna Center, the double-disc set features Salvant on a thoughtfully curated selection of standards and several originals, all touching upon the themes of romance and heartbreak. Along with her regular trio of pianist Aaron Diehl, bassist Paul Sikivie, and drummer Lawrence Leathers, Salvant is joined at various times by the classical string ensemble the Catalyst Quartet, who supply a cinematic layer of orchestration to Salvant's already emotive style. Whether she takes on a warhorse here like "I Didn't Know What Time It Was," or reveals her impeccable flair for picking lesser performed songs as on her wry reading of Noel Coward's "Mad About the Boy," she imbues each track with her own distinctive point of view. The few original compositions included here especially reveal her to be a literate, deeply poetic artist with a strong sense of personal identity. Ultimately, on Dreams and Daggers, with its balanced framework of live and studio recordings, happy and sad romantic songs, small group and classical chamber pieces, Salvant remains as bold and as sharp as ever.

--AllMusicGuide.com (Matt Collar)

The world first learned of the incredible vocal artistry of Cecile McLorin Salvant when she won the prestigious 2010 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. In just under the span of a decade she has evolved from a darling of jazz critics and fans, to a multi-GRAMMY® Award winner, to a prescient and fearless voice in music today. In life and in music, McLorin Salvant’s path has been unorthodox. The child of a French mother and Haitian father, she was raised in the rich cultural and musical mix of Miami. She began formal piano studies at age five and started singing with the Miami Choral Society at age eight. Growing up in a bilingual household, she was exposed to a wide variety of music from around the world through her parents wide-ranging record collection. While jazz was part of this rich mix, her adolescent and teenage years were focused on singing classical music and Broadway. It was in France that McLorin Salvant began to really discover the deep roots of jazz and American music, with the guidance of instructor and jazz saxophonist, Jean-Francois Bonnel. Bonnel’s mentoring included bringing McLorin Salvant stacks of albums, covering the work of jazz and blues legends as well as its lesser-known contributors. Working through these recordings, Salvant began building the foundation needed to thrive and occupy a special place in the august company of her predecessors. Three years later, McLorin Salvant returned to the US to compete in the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. On the urging of her mother she entered the contest, but with little sense of what was awaiting her. She took top honors.

The Window is an album of duets with the pianist Sullivan Fortner, explores and extends the tradition of the piano-vocal duo and its expressive possibilities. With just Fortner’s deft accompaniment to support McLorin Salvant, the two are free to improvise and rhapsodize, to play freely with time, harmony, melody and phrasing. Thematically, The Window is a meditative cycle of songs about the mercurial nature of love.

REVIEW:

Shifting between studio recordings and several live performances made at New York's Village Vanguard, Salvant and Fortner commune over a deftly curated and deeply enveloping mix of standards, covers, and one Salvant original, "À Clef," sung entirely in French. For a singer who has drawn well-earned comparisons to the pantheon of great vocalists with names like Ella, Aretha, and Billie, Salvant has an almost magical ability to make each song her own. Of course, Fortner is due equal credit for this transformative quality. A virtuoso in his own right, he has a pristine touch and lithe improvisational skills, drawing tastefully upon classical, post-bop, and stride styles, often within the same song. That he and Salvant play with such élan, but still manage to never get in each other's way, speaks to their immense skill and creative empathy.

-- AllMusicGuide.com (Matt Collar)