Pianist Billy Childs hasn't always put all of his talent cards on the table at once, suppressing one aspect of his artistry in deference to others at times, so it's nice to see that change with Rebirth. He's showing his full hand here – chops, nuance, composing, arranging, and all – and it's a musical royal flush if ever there was one. – All About Jazz

There have been two hallmarks—standards, if you will—that have been a part of every Billy Childs album. The first is the journey he’s traveled as a composer. He has always written music and to great acclaim: he has received five GRAMMY® Awards and 16 nominations, many for composition and arrangement. Presently in continual demand for symphonic and chamber commissions, he has also innovated a collection of compositions for jazz instrumentation and strings that is unique in the American music lexicon: a genre he refers to as jazz/chamber music. But for the second hallmark, Childs has always been a player, too—having cultivated his jazz voice in the working bands of trombonist J.J. Johnson and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.

“On my first Mack Avenue recording, Rebirth (Childs’ 2017 album on Mack Avenue Records which won a GRAMMY® Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album), I wanted to return to a focus on my jazz piano playing,” Childs states. “Acceptance is an extension of that, and the musicians make it very comfortable for me.” Childs thrives on group improvisation and has recruited fellow master musicians—saxophonist Steve Wilson, bassist Hans Glawischnig and drummer Eric Harland—as the core ensemble for this collection: Acceptance. Elena Pinderhughes on flute; vocalists Alicia Olatuja, Aubrey Johnson and Sara Gazarek; and percussionists Rogerio Boccato and Munyungo Jackson complete the stellar lineup on this recording.

REVIEW:

Acceptance, Billy Childs follow up to 2017's Rebirth, his Grammy-winning Mack Avenue outing, doesn't follow the path of its predecessor. It is more exotic in exploring chamber jazz, post-bop, fusion, and samba, with dramatic ballads, passionate vocals, and sophisticated pop woven in. The title cut commences as a poignant ballad erected from folk melodies. After resonant bass and keyboard solos from Glawischnig and Childs, saxophonist Steve Wilson enters, seamlessly shifting the band toward a soulful blues. The biggest surprise is "Leimert Park." Co-composed by Childs, bassist Paul Jackson, and drummer Mike Clark (the rhythm section of Herbie Hancock & Headhunters), it's a fusion jam that weaves trancelike synth and Rhodes vamps and rhythmic cadences, crisscrossing much musical terrain.

As a next chapter, Acceptance is as much a band showcase as it is one for Childs' tunes. Their intimate, almost instinctive communication is at once a calling card and an invitation to adventure.

-- AllMusicGuide.com

Looking back in order to look forward is fundamental to most art forms, maybe none more so than the profound art of jazz. In rare cases, such retrospection can reveal entirely new aspects of the art and its creator, redefining a legacy for a new generation. Such is the case with the genius of Erroll Garner. One of the most popular figures in jazz during his exceptional career, Garner’s legacy is receiving a remarkable reinvigoration through the concerted efforts of Octave Music’s Erroll Garner Project (EGP) and its partnership with Mack Avenue Music Group. Together they are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Garner’s birth with an extraordinary three-tiered release focused on Garner’s output from 1959 to 1975.

Symphony Hall Concert is a previously unreleased 9-song compilation recorded live at Boston’s Symphony Hall in 1959. The concert was originally presented by famed promoter George Wein. The album's cover artwork is based on poster from the Erroll Garner archive.

An absolute fusion classic, this is the album that put Weather Report (featuring Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, Alex Acuna and Manolo Badrena) on the map! Part of Sony's Jazz Masterpiece reissue series, this album (containing the smash hit "Birdland") features great new sound via 20-bit digital remastering.

REVIEW:

Weather Report's biggest-selling album is that ideal thing, a popular and artistic success -- and for the same reasons. For one thing, Joe Zawinul revealed an unexpectedly potent commercial streak for the first time since his Cannonball Adderley days, contributing what has become a perennial hit, "Birdland." Indeed, "Birdland" is a remarkable bit of record-making, a unified, ever-developing piece of music that evokes, without in any way imitating, a joyous evening on 52nd St. with a big band. Wayne Shorter's saxophones are now reticent, if always eloquent, beams of light in Zawinul's general scheme while Alex Acuña shifts ably over to the drums and Manolo Badrena handles the percussion. Released just as the jazz-rock movement began to run out of steam, this landmark album proved that there was plenty of creative life left in the idiom.

-- AllMusic.com

The Movement, Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Cultural Icons is culminating documentation of a richly inspired piece - lauding four key figures of the Civil Rights Movement: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and Muhammad Ali.

Marshalling his ever-sharpening skills as a composer, arranger, conductor, musician, and lyricist, McBride has created a historically and culturally illuminating five-part suite for an 18-piece big band, chorus and narrators that places the motivating forces as well as the goals of the Civil Rights Movement within a powerfully relevant artistic context. It is a one-from-the-heart project McBride was, apparently, destined to undertake. This recording of The Movement, Revisited marks the addition of a fifth movement, “Apotheosis,” which acknowledges the election of Barack Obama as the first African American President of the United States.

REVIEW:

Drawing upon the words of legendary civil rights leaders Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and Muhammad Ali, Christian McBride offers a heartfelt large-ensemble tribute to the civil rights movement of the 1960s with 2020's The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons.

The Movement Revisited is a reverent and theatrical recording, which isn't to say it's not harmonically rich with plenty of swinging improvisational intensity. The five-part work spotlights McBride's multifaceted skills as a composer, arranger, and lyricist as he frames the uplifting words of these four heroes with his soulful arrangements. The recording culminates in the final movement "Apotheosis," celebrating the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the first African-American President of the United States; an historic event that McBride beautifully ties directly to the civil rights and black power movements of the preceding decades. Helping bring the words of the civil rights leaders to life are narrators Wendell Pierce, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Sonia Sanchez, and Dion Graham. Also showcased throughout are McBride's bandmates, including vibraphonist Warren Wolf, pianist Geoffrey Keezer, and drummer Terreon Gully, among others.

While the album is orchestral in nature, all of the introductory prologues are stripped down, with McBride underlining the speaker's words with his dusky, bluesy basslines. As McBride points out in his liner notes, this is a personal work filtered through the prism of his own life and his feelings about these four individuals. It is a powerful and deeply considered work that invokes not just the words, but also the ebullient spirit of the civil rights movement.

-- AllMusicGuide.com (Matt Collar)

Jazz Batá 2, composer, pianist and bandleader Chucho Valdés' first album for Mack Avenue Records, marks a new peak of creativity for the artist, even as it revisits the small-group concept of his 1972 Cuban album Jazz Batá. That album upon release was originally considered experimental at the time, but the trio project - featuring no drum set and two virtuosi who would subsequently be charter members of Irakere: Carlos del Puerto (bass) and Oscar Valdés (batâ: the sacred, hourglass shaped drums of the Yoruba religion in Cuba) - would now be considered contemporary. Recorded in two and a half days at John Lee's studio in New Jersey, Jazz Batá 2 is both rhythmic and lyrical at once. The six-hand complexity of the batá repertoire - the deep classical music of West Africa - permeates Valdés' piano solos throughout the album. "I applied to my solos the different rhythms of the batá," he says. "The piano is of course a harmonic instrument, but it's percussive too, and you can play percussion with it." Valdés set the batá-driven small-group format aside in the wake of Irakere's explosive popularity in 1973, but he's always wanted to get back to it. Now he's done it with Jazz Batá 2, "with more resources, in every sense," he says, "with a wider panorama."

Sometimes when artists release their first leader project for a major label, the album serves as a calling card that tells the jazz world, “Here’s what I can do.” That’s the case with Christian Sands, 27, who was a finalist in the American Pianists Awards competition. His leader debut for Mack Avenue, Reach, showcases his significant talents as an imaginative composer, a clever arranger and a skillful technician with a fluid style. The album includes eight original compositions and two intriguing covers. Four of the songs are piano trio tunes—with bassist Yasushi Nakamura and drummer Marcus Baylor—and elsewhere the band is joined by guests Marcus Stickland (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet), Cristian Rivera (percussion) and Gilad Hekselman (electric guitar). Sands’ frequent collaborator Christian McBride, who produced the album with Al Pryor, contributes a brief but powerful arco solo to a rendition of Bill Withers’ 1972 hit “Use Me.” On “Armando’s Song,” Sands’ precise yet intricate piano lines reflect the influence of Chick Corea, who inspired the song. Sands pays homage to a couple of departed piano titans, Bud Powell and Herbie Nichols, with “Bud’s Tune.” The excellent track “Óyeme!” with its Afro-Cuban feel, illustrates some of the musical palette that Sands burnished while working with Bobby Sanabria. “Freefall,” which features electronic keyboard overdubs, has a futuristic vibe, illustrating Sands’ openness to experimental sounds. He concludes the album with a ballad, “Somewhere Out There,” which appeared on the soundtrack to the animated film An American Tale. Even listeners who find Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram’s duo version from 1987 to be too sentimental are likely to be won over by Sands’ arrangement, which offers delicate beauty, ominous moods and a satisfying conclusion. - DownBeat Editors' Pick

The first time I listened to this album in my car, I nearly missed my exit on the expressway. There is so much hep stuff happening in these new big band arrangements of tunes by Thelonious Monk that I was transported to another realm, one where the car seems capable of driving itself. Then it struck me: That’s precisely what’s happening with these charts and this ensemble of L.A.’s finest musicians and special guests, all under the direction of pianist/conductor/arranger John Beasley. Everything on Presents MONK’estra Vol. 1 feels so natural and inevitable, it’s almost as if the material plays itself. And if you enjoy Monk—whether for his undeniable logic, quirky song architecture or innate sense of swing—Beasley’s band will leave you rapt. Beasley has been writing big band charts since he was a teenager, and he has long been fascinated by Monk’s music (this debut recording by the MONK’estra is actually Beasley’s third album of material by the High Priest of Bebop). Beasley’s MONK’estra has performed live since 2013, and he has served as musical director for the Monk Institute’s Jazz Day gala concerts since 2011 and for International Jazz Day events since 2012. (He has done plenty of commercial work as well, most notably as the lead arranger for TV’s American Idol from 2005 to 2016.) Beasley knows his Monk inside and out, and he knows his way around a chart. But, most importantly, this onetime member of groups led by Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis knows how to give his bandmembers—including guest stars Gary Burton on vibes (“Epistrophy”) and Grégoire Maret on harmonica (“Ask Me Now”)—sufficient freedom to stylize the written passages and improvise with abandon. In applying all of his acquired skills and personal passions to Presents MONK’estra Vol. 1, Beasley brings Monk to life once again for modern-minded listeners. - DownBeat Magazine Editors' Pick

Celebrating 10 years since they first recorded together, Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga returned to the studio for another collaboration featuring the very best of the Cole Porter Songbook. Continuing the musical legacy that began with “Lady Is A Tramp,” followed by the GRAMMY winning album, Cheek To Cheek, this new recording captures the evolution of the singular creative and personal relationship of these two world famous artists. Tony, who turns 95 on August 3, 2021, has spent over 7 decades dedicated to performing the Great American Songbook and Lady Gaga who, with Tony by her side, renewed her love of the popular standard and redefined herself in the process. The album features duets as well as solo performances by both artists accompanied by Tony Bennett’s quartet, The Brian Newman Quintet, along with big band and orchestral arrangements by Marion Evans and Jorge Callandrelli.