Recipient of Village Voice Obie Award tenor saxophonist Vito Dieterle makes a striking SteepleChase debut with Nerve Case, presenting a warm, full bodied sound shaped by years on the New York scene and deep roots in Chicago's tenor tradition. For those of you who do not know much about Vito, here's some interesting excerpts from his website: After attending the prestigious New School Jazz program and freelancing around NYC, Vito began to perform weekly with his band every Sunday at Little Branch starting in early 2005 and soon went on to curate a 5-day a week live music program for the venue, which immediately went on to critical acclaim and exists to this day. He has now gone onto curate festivals and venues in New York and abroad. His working band of guitarist Kris Kaiser, bassist Griffin Fink, and drummer Aaron Seeber shares a rare chemistry that drives the album's mix of standards, jazz gems, and two originals. Dieterle's tone bold and clear leads the group's interplay to a conversational flow. From the Tristano tinged opener 'Split' to the soulful ballads and the bluesy title track, Nerve Case introduces a mature, distinctive voice and a ensemble sound built on shared musical purpose.

BEST OF

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

Guitar virtuoso Julian Lage returns with his fifth Blue Note release, Scenes From Above, the follow-up to the GRAMMY-nominated Speak To Me, which was once again produced by Joe Henry. The album features Lage in a new band with John Medeski on organ and piano, Jorge Roeder on bass, and Kenny Wollesen on drums for a set of striking new original compositions.180g black vinyl.

Limited double orange and magenta colored vinyl LP pressing. As if from the farthest reaches of space, a tremendous positive energy has come to us via Light on a Satellite: It is Sun Ra's music, played by his Arkestra, more than 30 years after the legendary band founder's earthly demise - or, in other words, after his reported ascent to Saturn. Under the direction of Marshall Allen, the NEA Jazz Master (2025) and multi-instrumentalist, who celebrated his 100th birthday on May 25, 2024, Sun Ra's big band has arrived safely in the 21st century, after traveling Sun Ra's space ways for almost 70 years. This album pays tribute to the lifetime achievement of Marshall Allen, who leads the Sun Ra Arkestra since 1993. Recorded in Studio A at New York's Power Station on June 16, 2024, the album celebrates the mastery of the exceptional musician Marshall Allen as a multi-instrumentalist, arranger, bandleader, teacher, and guardian of Sun Ra's unique legacy. Perhaps this day will one day become part of the collective jazz memory, for what we are experiencing here is a simultaneity of the non-simultaneous, projected into the future, a time machine traveling through 100 years of jazz, out of the free approach of the Sun Ra Arkestra and in it's signature groove right into the heart of swing - with a century-old jazz master as captain. That in itself is a superlative. We are even more inspired by the power with which the virtuoso Marshall Allen continues his life's vocation. As a tribute to the life's work of Marshall Allen, Frank Kleinschmidt of IN+OUT Records invited the Sun Ra Arkestra into the studio with 24 musicians in the largest possible line-up, with the goal of documenting the music in it's polyphony and expansion in space and time in the best possible way. It is not only the variety of instruments used, but also the fact that musicians from four generations come together with a repertoire that spans 100 years of jazz history.

Double vinyl LP pressing. As if from the farthest reaches of space, a tremendous positive energy has come to us via Light on a Satellite: It is Sun Ra's music, played by his Arkestra, more than 30 years after the legendary band founder's earthly demise - or, in other words, after his reported ascent to Saturn. Under the direction of Marshall Allen, the NEA Jazz Master (2025) and multi-instrumentalist, who celebrated his 100th birthday on May 25, 2024, Sun Ra's big band has arrived safely in the 21st century, after traveling Sun Ra's space ways for almost 70 years. This album pays tribute to the lifetime achievement of Marshall Allen, who leads the Sun Ra Arkestra since 1993. Recorded in Studio A at New York's Power Station on June 16, 2024, the album celebrates the mastery of the exceptional musician Marshall Allen as a multi-instrumentalist, arranger, bandleader, teacher, and guardian of Sun Ra's unique legacy. Perhaps this day will one day become part of the collective jazz memory, for what we are experiencing here is a simultaneity of the non-simultaneous, projected into the future, a time machine traveling through 100 years of jazz, out of the free approach of the Sun Ra Arkestra and in it's signature groove right into the heart of swing - with a century-old jazz master as captain. That in itself is a superlative. We are even more inspired by the power with which the virtuoso Marshall Allen continues his life's vocation. As a tribute to the life's work of Marshall Allen, Frank Kleinschmidt of IN+OUT Records invited the Sun Ra Arkestra into the studio with 24 musicians in the largest possible line-up, with the goal of documenting the music in it's polyphony and expansion in space and time in the best possible way. It is not only the variety of instruments used, but also the fact that musicians from four generations come together with a repertoire that spans 100 years of jazz history.

'Star People,' the blistering 1983 album from Miles Davis, is the VMP Classics Record of the Month for November 2022. It's here on 180g black audiophile vinyl pressed at RTI with AAA lacquers cut from tapes by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Macroscope, the fifth album and Mack Avenue debut by his adventurous trio The Nels Cline Singers, provides a measure of the long-running group's staggering range. Captivating and continually surprising, the album finds the instrumental trio with the slyly deceptive name veering in one off-kilter direction only to suddenly be overwhelmed by another drastic stylistic shift, often within the space of a single tune. Serrated psychedelia becomes consumed by soulful Brasiliana, blissed-out electronica overwhelmed by garage-rock skronk. Then there's the wholly unexpected "Red Before Orange," where a howling Hendrix-inspired solo suddenly erupts in the middle of a slick lounge-jazz number, Cline unleashing the inner George Benson that few of us expected he even had.

Room is an album by guitarists Nels Cline and Julian Lage which was originally released in November 2014. Writing for All About Jazz, Matt Marshall stated "the musicianship of the two guitarists allows them to take every tune to a number of unexpected and exciting places... Each track has it's own character, but the entire album is permeated by the two guitarists' inventiveness and sensitive accompanying ability".

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.

Produced by McBride, Kind Of Brown is a collection of hard swing-to-bluesy groove tunes that the leader says he put together to give the members of his new ensemble "something to sink their teeth into."

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. 

For nearly two decades, the world at large knew precisely where to find the acclaimed guitarist Kevin Eubanks. For five nights a week, Eubanks was cranking up the band and issuing steamy solos as music director on NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno." In spring of 2010, after 18 years on the job, Eubanks decided to move on, although retirement was the last thing on his mind. That much is clearly stated in potent musical terms on Zen Food, his first recording for the Mack Avenue label.

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

Vinyl LP pressing including digital download. Available once again on vinyl to coincide with the insightful Maxine Gordon-penned biography that shares it's title, Sophisticated Giant was recorded shortly after Gordon's return from a dozen years living abroad in Europe. Originally recorded in June of 1977, the album finds Gordon on both tenor and soprano saxophone joined by an all-star "Dextette," 10 crack players including trumpeters Woody Shaw and Benny Bailey, vibes master Bobby Hutcherson, trombonist Slide Hampton, Frank Wess on alto and flute and more. Includes the Gordon original "Fried Bananas," Shaw's "The Moontrane" plus standards such as "Laura" and "You're Blase" all arranged by Slide Hampton and produced by Michael Cuscuna.