When you visit a franchise restaurant, you always know what will be on the menu and what it will taste like. When you listen to a Bill O'Connell recording you may not know what is on the menu, but you're guaranteed it'll be a gourmet delight. As in O'Connell's previous recording the gifted veterans and leaders in their own right, Conrad Herwig on trombone and saxophonist Steve Slagle add their prowess to the mix. O�Connell gives his arranging chops a workout with interesting takes on Willow Weep for Me and John Lennon's �Imagine� and penned some new tunes specifically for this recording.

Famed jazz percussionist and double-Grammy nominee Sammy Figueroa and Brazilian singer/songwriter Glaucia Nasser got together in Sao Paolo and created an album that presents a perfect balance of great musicianship and soaring vocals. Featuring guitarist Chico Pinheiro, pianist/composer Bianca Gismonti and pandeiro virtuoso Bernardo Aquilar this album is full of surprises. Sammy's percussion flows beneath the songs, with bursts of Uruguayan candombe, Cuban bata, Puerto Rican bomba and of course carnival samba, while Glaucia's pure sound is aspirational and heartfelt, transcending language.

Alto saxophonist Jim Snidero brings the sum total of his experiences to the fore on Main Street, including those as a leader as well as a sideman with Frank Wess, the Mingus Big Band, Jack McDuff, and Toshiko Akiyoshi. Here he draws upon a quarter-century of touring experiences for a trip through some of the American experience via a cycle of new compositions and two covers. With bassist Linda Oh, drummer Rudy Royston and Cuban pianist Fabian Almazan, Main Street offers fresh original material, imaginative arrangements, inspired soloing, and cohesive yet spontaneous group interaction.

The sound of a truly fine big band makes a lasting aural impression, combining sheer grandness with the finest, intimate improvisations. We now welcome back to the stage the Peter Hand Big Band. A native of New York City, Hand has been a guitarist in a wide variety of groups, has composed an impressive number of tunes, and has also studied big band arranging and composing with the legendary Herb Pomeroy. The Band, includes a stellar array of New York jazz players ? including Houston Person, Don Braden, Eddie Allen, Valery Ponomarev, Bruce Williams, James Weidman and Harvie S to name a few.

Barbara Morrison has been featured on over 20 recordings choosing her repertoire from a wide array of genres from traditional jazz and blues to gospel and pop. Her powerful voice, with it's two-and-a-half-octave range, allows Ms. Morrison to belt out down-home, soul-stirring blues in a manner which places her firmly in the tradition of Etta Jones, Helen Humes, Irene Reid, and Dinah Washington. Her impassioned renditions of favorite torch songs reveal a consummate musicianship and a firm grasp of a song's deepest meaning.

Giacomo Gates is an extraordinary vocal stylist. He's often credited as a contemporary Eddie Jefferson, but remains a true innovator, not an imitator. For his Savant debut, Gates has chosen a stimulating selection of songs by the influential and controversial Gil Scott-Heron. Scott-Heron made music that reflected the turbulence and increasing pessimism of the early 70s. This material is tailor-made for Gates, who without question is the best-suited performer to deliver the satirical and insightful lyrics of a true American original, Gil Scott-Heron.

Joe Chambers is one of the drummers from the fifties and sixties who, along with Max Roach and Art Blakey has influenced an entire generation of drummers. With an ensemble that includes stalwarts Eric Alexander on tenor saxophone, Xavier Davis on piano and others, Chambers here breathes fresh life into a number of well-known jazz classics. While the overall approach is mainstream, the sound is unequivocally contemporary. It remains reverential to tradition yet with a clear regard for jazz as a living, breathing entity.

When you think of hard-driving swing, daring expression, sophistication and elegance in artistry, formidable technique and a thunderous sound, there are only a very small handful of contemporary pianists you think of and two of them are on this recording! Eric Reed and Cyrus Chestnut have played with a virtual Who's Who of jazz including Wynton Marsalis, Freddie Hubbard and others. Captured live in the rarely-encountered two-piano format, they offer enough jazz adorned with uninhibited improvisations, flashes of pop & bop, whimsy and wit to please the most discriminating of jazz aficionados.

Jim Snidero is known to spin out wonderfully clean, inventive lines. His transparent sound and rapid execution evoke the early Art Pepper, as well as one of Snidero's own teachers Phil Woods. He never resorts to aimless scribbling, even at the quickest tempos, while his ballad interpretations are filled with exquisitely oblique lines. This, the saxophonist's second release for Savant, presents a unique ensemble, with no keyboard of any kind, the rhythm section of Paul Gill, bass and Billy Drummond, drums propel the proceedings forward while fret-master Paul Bollenback lays down the changes.

Peter Hand has been a prolific and active presence on the New York Jazz scene for many years and has worked with and/or written music for Carmen Lundy, the George Coleman Octet and the Lee Konitz Nonet. On his debut release for Savant Records, the Peter Hand Big Band featuring tenor sax giant Houston Person pays tribute to the music of Harold Arlen and features a lineup of stellar musicians including Don Braden, Ralph Lalama, Cecil Bridgewater, Valery Ponomarev, Jim Rotondi, Richard Wyands and Harvie S, putting a fresh and swinging spin on some of the most memorable songs in the Harold Arlen Songbook. Album includes such Arlen classics as "Come Rain or Come Shine", "The Man That Got Away", "Let's Fall in Love", "Stormy Weather" and more.

BIG SHOT

HOT DOG

MIND WINE

NOW WAS THE TIME

PLAYING FOR KEEPS

BLUES CITIZENS

YOUR EYES

ON FIRE

DESERT HEAT

DOUBLE EXPOSURE

THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT YOU I DON'T KNOW

Melvin Sparks, the master of groove, funk, soul, jazz, barbeque funk or whatever you want to call it, brings you GROOVE ON UP. See what's made him the funkmaster supreme on this recording. Features the tracks "Mykia's Dance" and the title track "Groove on Up."

OUTLAW

After years of playing with every major artist from Miles Davis to Mzariah Carey, Sammy Figueroa makes his recording debut on Savant Records with AND SAMMY WALKED IN.

Legendary soul groove acid jazz innovator release his latest funk masterpiece THIS IS IT.