Trumpeter/Composer/Arranger/Educator/Actor Jason Palmer, the winner of several prestigious competitions including the 2009 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition presents his first quartet album here. As always Jason is keen on sharing with the listeners how the music is conceived, developed and performed in his meticulously organized liner notes. The music which based on a Sudoku game originates in the 2007 commissioned work by the Festival of New Trumpet Music in N.Y.C. “…what a superb record it is; one that will caress the discerning ear and repay hours of repeated listening being a refined post-modern extension of timeless hard-bop conventions that will stimulate the palate, jaded by too much exposure to so-called `cutting edge’ eclecticism.” (Euan Dixon - Jazz View on Places SCCD 31780)

The music of the early 20th century French Avant-gardist Erik Satie for a jazz album makes perfect sense when its interpreters/performers are cornetist Kirk Knuffke and his long-time partner pianist Jesse Stacken. They both share their musical background in unconventional new/free jazz as well as classical training. The Knuffke/Stacken duo has released a series of highly acclaimed albums with music by renowned composers of jazz. “This is nostalgia made vibrant, played with precision, depth, good taste and a leisurely refusal to overcrowd its sonic space.” (Martin Longley – AAJ on SCCD 31677 Mockingbird)

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Olegario Diaz moved to USA at age 17 to study jazz at the Berklee College of Music and then furthered his studies at New York’s Manhattan School of Music where he earned the master’s degree. Currently in Venezuela, Diaz leads an active life as performer and renowned author of several instructional books. He travels frequently to New York to record and perform. “Diaz wrote seven of the tunes here and that seems logical as he appears to be one of the best jazz composers today…. He is more than a fresh breath of air in the classical post-bebop tradition.” (Ole Nimand – Jazz Special on SCCD31774 Basquiat By Night/Day)

Being a former classical pianist, Turkish-born Burak Bedikyan employs his enormous technical proficiency to elaborate his compositions here on this third album to illustrate the new depth in his creativity. “…his exponential growth as a performer, composer and arranger is chronicled with one of the finest releases for 2013 in Circle of Life ...” (Brent Black – Bob-N-Jazz on SCCD33109 Circle of Life)

Award winning jazz pianist/composer Carl Winther (b. 1984 in Denmark) has already established himself in the international elite instrumentalist circuit of younger generation. Growing up in a musical family with his father, renowned trumpeter Jens Winther (1960 – 2011) Carl embarked on his professional music career while still a teenager performing and recording with Billy Hart, Jerry Bergonzi, Bill Evans, George Garzone, Adam Nussbaum, Dick Oats, and Doug Raney to mention a few. “Carl Winther is an enterprising and original pianist and composer. He has toured all over the world, and is a representative of the high standard of Danish jazz internationally.” (Quintonic – album review)

“Mood” deciphers “ballads” here in this Rich Perry new album, which is, to quote the liner notes author Neil Tesser, “.. all ballads, all handled with skill and taste, yet all pushing at the edges to find something else.” “The SteepleChase sessions… constitute a body of work equal to anyone currently in the jazz mainstream. Perry's editing, shifts in tone and phrasing, and embellishments of songs like "Gone With The Wind" on Gone (SCCD 31670) evince a genuine appreciation of the melodies, as well as a desire to make his own way through them.” (David A Orthmann-AAJ)

Stella By Starlight, My Foolish Heart, Johnny Guitar, Beautiful Love – just a few of the iconic American Songbook titles by Victor Young, whose music has been an important part of the repertoire of guitarist Vic Juris for many years. Juris dedicates the whole album here to the undisputed giant of the American film music composer of the last century. “Two outstanding qualities characterize Vic Juris' playing. One is his embodiment of the jazz tradition, while always stretching his scope and reaching for new possibilities and concepts. The other is his almost uncanny ability to hear and communicate the totality of the music he is playing, from beginning to end, including what is going on around him in the group and his many references to the jazz legacy.” (Victor L. Schermer – Interview AAJ)

Classical Music

Back for the first time in more than 25 years, MAXINE SULLIVAN: Great Songs From the Cotton Club by Arlen & Koehler this award winning album has already been Grammy nominated and has won the NAIRD award for Best Female Jazz Vocalist. This album was carried on many top ten lists, and brought Maxine Sullivan’s five decade career to a climax. Maxine Sullivan and her husband John Kirby became the first African American jazz stars to have a regular radio program. After her retirement, Maxine formed The House That Jazz Built in the South Bronx, which supports jazz education programs for children.

This laid back program of classics by powerhouse jazz composers Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn adequately show Tommy Smith’s virtuosic saxophone playing. Smith does a fantastic job of keeping the composers’ intentions in mind, while still adding his own colors and textures to these classics. Smith is accompanied here by an all-star trio of musicians, including Kenny Barron, Peter Washington and Billy Drummond. Many of these tracks were recorded in just one take. This album was originally released in 1998, and is being re-issued here as part of Linn’s ECHO series.

Centered around accordionist Vincent Peirani, the ensemble Living Being presents this new, extended album. The works on these two discs were recorded at the November 2013 SWR NEWJazz Meeting. For this meeting, Peirani expanded his core quintet to include Mathias Eick and Leila Martial. The extended group performed three concerts, in Tubingen, Mainz, and Karlsruhe.

The pieces of Swiss pianist and composer Yves Theiler focus on the jazz universe, and seamlessly fuse together world music influences and minimalism. Dance In A Triangle includes seven of Theiler’s compositions. The works are performed by the Yves Theiler Trio, which includes the composer on piano, Luca Sisera on bass, and Lukas Mantel on drums. The ensemble is currently nominated for one of the most exclusive jazz-prizes of Switzerland.

Albert and Emil Mangelsdorff are two brothers who had an important impact on the development of German jazz. Emil studied clarinet at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, but he is more widely known for his saxophone playing. After he was a member of the illegal ensemble Hot Club, (jazz was banned in Germany at the time) he was imprisoned by the Gestapo and forced into the Hitler Army. After the war he performed in the Frankfurt All Stars and the Jazz-Ensemble des Hessischen Rundfunks before forming his own quartet in the 1960s. Albert is most known for his technique of playing multiphonics. A trombone player, he led a hard bop quintet in the late 50s, and performed frequently with his brother. This release is a compilation of concerts and studio sessions, recorded in the height of the brothers’ career, between 1956 and 1963.

The Modern Jazz Quartet was formed in 1952, largely by the rhythm section of the Dizzy Gillespie Band. When these recordings were made, John Lewis was still trying to develop the Modern Jazz Quartet as a jazz chamber group, attempting to make a unique style of jazz, free of cliché. The motto of the MJQ was “Change your attitude.” Each of the thirteen tracks on this album show the ensemble’s unique and dignified style. As Andre Francis wrote of the group, the musicians are “a sensitive instrument which vibrates in the same universe of sound, achieving a communion unique in the world of jazz.”

Renaud-Gabriel Pion is a successful composer, multi-instrumentalist, and improvisational musician. He performs on bass clarinet, Turkish clarinet, saxophone, bass flute, English horn, electronic woodwind instruments, and piano. He is based in Paris and Berlin. Of this project, Pion writes: “This music made sense to open windows on the city, the charm is immediately established. New York Sketches questions the permeability of the process of composition and recording the sound of the external environment- the opposite of the usual confinement in an airtight place.” (Translated fromwww.renaudgabrielpion.org) An extensive booklet is included with full color photographs of the most inspirational places in New York to Renaud-Gabirl Pion.

Pianist/composer Federico Bonifazi is considered one of the most outstanding talents of younger generation of Italy. After studying music in Paris and Turin Bonifazi embarked on professional career as a jazz musician in Europe. His trip to NYC in 2014 enabled him to establish a network of friends in New York jazz scene. Bonifazi returned to NYC the following year with host of compositions of his own to record this SteepleChase Lookout debut album with New York’s leading artists including Eric Alexander and the legendary drummer Jimmy Cobbs.

One of the handful of surviving original hard-boppers Freddie Redd is turning 88 this month. The famed composer of the 60’s iconic off-Broadway play The Connection Redd ’s recording career has been, however, sporadic despite his great talent. His trio album “Music For You” (SCCD 31796) in 2014, the first in almost three decades rectified this trend following the precursory 2012 release of “Music Forever” (SCCD 31743) a tribute album to Redd’s music by altoist Chris Byars’ Octet. On this new album Redd presides over a sextet of much younger generations as performer and composer of old and new compositions embodied here to render a remarkable reminder of jazz’s longevity.

Following their first two albums, the Naoko Sakata Trio is one of the most popular and interesting improvisation groups in Sweden. The trio plays lyrical improvisation with attitude as well as musical maturity on this new release. The moods on this self-composed album vary from beautiful and wild to contemplative and still.

Jazz has been declared “dead” innumerable times since saxophonist Ken Field formed the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble in 1990. The band obviously didn’t get the memo! In fact, it’s ironic that over the years rather than playing a “Second Line” dirge for jazz’s funeral, the horn-heavy sextet- inspired by the New Orleans brass band tradition- has been developing and cultivating a distinct sound critics and audiences alike hail for invigorating an illustrious musical heritage with fresh ideas wit, and spunk while in the process attracting new and younger audiences to music. Over more than a quarter century of touring and performing in settings ranging from clubs and concert halls to festival and parades, RSE has been evolving and refining a unique sound that incorporates post-bop and avant jazz influences without ever losing its allegiance to the groove and the party spirit of NOLA. This release is RSE’s fourth album, and it celebrates the band’s collective experience by providing a snapshot of where and what it is today- a tight, funky, fun, and heady unit that’s transgenerational in its appeal and whose music resonates with listeners on melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic levels. The personnel heard on the album is Field’s current working band and the RSE line-up that has played continuously together the longest. This is also the group’s first album to feature all original material.

The House That Love Built

At The Golden Circle Vol. 2

The House I Live In

Jan Gunnar Hoff - Stories - Stories is Jan Gunnar Hoff's third solo piano album on the 2L label and is a sequel to his critically acclaimed album LIVING from 2013. On the new release Hoff stretches his creative abilities, presenting contrasting compositions and improvisations, in a distinctly personal mixture. Some of the pieces are meditative and expressive, while others have a strong rhythmic vibe. Stories also displays Hoff as an arranger, presenting versions of classics like "God Only Knows" and the traditional Swedish folk song "V�rmlandsvisan". SACD and Blu-ray Audio

Sharon Paige broke into show business in her teens as a singing and dancing chorus girl and moved quickly to featured roles. She has traveled throughout the United States and Canada, performing in the national companies of Broadway and Off Broadway musicals. Sharon has also toured the summer-tent, dinner-theater and nightclub circuits. In 2008, she and Keith Ingham released their Ned Washington tribute album, Love Is the Thing; Burke Beautiful is their second collaboration. Sharon currently resides and sings in New York City. Keith Ingham has recorded extensively and worked with Benny Goodman and other bands. He wrote the arrangements and led an all-star group of musicians on three notable Maxine Sullivan recordings for Harbinger Records. The first, “Maxine Sullivan Sings Great Songs from the Cotton Club by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler,” was nominated for a Grammy Award. He and Maxine also collaborate on Harbinger albums devoted to the music of Jule Styne and burton Lane. Keith was also arranger and leader on the classic Peggy Lee recording, “Love Held Lightly,” also for Harbinger Records. Johnny Burke was one of America’s greatest composer/lyricists. He enjoyed a long collaboration with James V. Monaco and then Jimmy McHugh writing songs for films, shows, and such singers as Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.

Guitarist and composer David Doružka, a leading and awarded representative of the Czech jazz scene, whose activities go beyond Czech borders, comes with his new album "Autumn Tales" almost ten years since his previous album "Silently Dawning", although in the meantime he obviously worked on dozens projects of other artists. The album, recorded in trio with acoustic rhythm section, contains mainly David's original compositions, but for inspiration and repertoire, however, he also used sources of Jewish music, oeuvre of Bohuslav Martinu and Czech interwar popular jazz.