Ben Wendel is about to take his Seasons Band with him to New York's Village Vanguard May 14-19th. It's going to be a highly anticipated week for one of the best works of 2018. To lead up to it all, Wendel has released one last music video from The Seasons, for the song June, as usual directed by Alex Chaloff and showing this band with just as much beauty as the music they're … [Read more...]
Supergroup New Masters Drops Cover of Juice WRLD’s “Lucid Dreams” (Stream)
Sony Music Masterworks is taking aim at the younger generation of music listeners. In an attempt to make jazz relevant again, it has assembled “a rotating ensemble of today’s leading, up-and-coming and established jazz musicians,” called New Masters with the inaugural lineup comprised of pianist Sullivan Fortner, drummer Eric Harland, trumpeter Keyon Harrold, guitarist Gilad Hek … [Read more...]
Ben Wendel Seasons Band – “March” (Video)
One of the highlight albums of 2018 is most certainly saxophonist Ben Wendel's The Seasons, a quintet filling out compositions originally for duets released as a YouTube series in 2015, with one song for each month of the year. It's a bold, dazzling album that must be embraced (and though I never did get around to reviewing it, it certainly appeared on The Line-Up a lot lately … [Read more...]
Ben Wendel’s Seasons Band Release “July”, First Track Off Debut Album ‘The Seasons’ (Video)
With the fall season's upcoming releases looking quite promising, saxophonist Ben Wendel's new album, The Seasons, is definitely one of the albums we are most highly anticipating around here. Based on the video series he put together back in 2015 involving duet compositions with assorted musicians, the project has now evolved to include a full band (many of whom were in said … [Read more...]
Walter Smith III – “Ask Me Now”
Saxophonist Walter Smith III has a new album on the horizon. TWIO to be released February 9 on Whirlwind Recordings, features Smith’s trio comprised of bassist Harish Raghavan and drummer Eric Harland with guest appearances by Joshua Redman and Christian McBride. “For this album, out of around twenty recorded songs, I chose nine pieces that I have a particular relationship with … [Read more...]