The quartet featured Grant Green (g), Hank Mobley (ts on all tracks except

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Reencontro com Sambalanço Trio (1965) was the fourth album recorded by the Brazilian hard-bossa group, featuring Cesar Camargo Mariano on piano, Humberto Clayber on bass and Airto Moreira on drums. It’s a gorgeous mix of bossa nova, hard bossa and samba-jazz.

Sambalanço Trio recorded one more album (Lennie Dale & Sambalanço Trio no Zum Zum) before breaki…

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There were two great periods of the jazz organ combo. One was the late 1950s and early 1960s, with gospel-influenced organists such as Jimmy Smith, Shirley Scott, Brother Jack McDuff, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Jimmy McGriff, Baby Face Willette, Larry Young, Melvin Rhyne and Big John Patton. The second period in the late 1960s and early ‘70s centered on s…

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Each week, dozens of CDs and download links pour into my mailbox and email, and each week about 80% of what I hear gets tossed. Then I whittle down the remaining 20% to 10%, and the results pop up here each month.

Here are my April favorites:

Billy Childs—Triumvirate (Mack Avenue). Six-time Grammy-winning pianist Billy Childs has a new album out with Matt Penman on bass and Ari Hoenig on drums (except track 8). Childs has a wonderful way of sliding between abstraction and straight-ahead jazz. His chords are graceful and plush, and his swing is sensitive and determined. Penman and Hoenig complement him perfectly. I could leave this one on autoplay all day. To listen and buy, go here.

Here’s Thelonious Monk’s Ask Me Now…

Russ Spiegel—Timepieces (Ruzztone Music). Russ Spiegel is a gorgeous acoustic and electric guitarist. His chords are lush and full, his improvisation is lovely and his original pieces are seductive. Pat Metheny came to mind as I listened to Spiegel’s new album. He’s joined by Tal Cohen (p), Vince Dupont (b) and Brandon Lee Lewis (d). His special guests are Hendrik Meurkens (chromatic harmonica on tracks 3 and 9), Jean Caze on trumpet on track 6 and on flugelhorn on track 8, Tim Armacost on tenor saxophone on tracks 6 and 8, and Javier Nero on trombone on tracks 6 and 8. Pure bliss. To listen and buy, go here.

Here’s Spiegel and his trio playing the album’s title track…

Jon Regen—From Left to Right ( JRM/Symphonic). Before he was a jazz-pop singer-songwriter doing well on the charts, pianist Jon Regen led a jazz trio. In 1996, he recorded his first album but it was never widely released. Recorded direct to two-track on Carnegie Hall’s former Steinway Model D at Systems Two Studios in Brooklyn, the album features Regen, bassist Earl May (who played with Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Billy Taylor) and drummer Sunny Jain. The 26-year-old Regen sold copies of the self-produced CD at gigs and used it as a calling card around New York. As you’ll hear, Regen had solid jazz chops early and plays beautifully here with maturity and poise. And to have May along for the ride, how fortunate! Regen just programmed the upcoming NYC Downtown JazzFest and his album Live in London is due out later this year.

Here’s the entire album, track by track…

Jim Robitaille Trio—Sonic (Whaling City Sound). Sonic is a fascinating guitar trio album. Jim Robitaille plays guitar and guitar synthesizer and is backed by bassist Tom Casale and drummer Chris Poudrier. The record has an orchestral sound when Robitaille plays the guitar synth, and the songs are gentle fusion overall. I loved every track. To buy, go here.

Here’s the entire album, track by track…

Ted Nash, Steve Cardenas, Ben Allison—Triological (Sunnyside). Not since the Jimmy Giuffre 3 back in the late 1950s have I heard such superb jazz with this instrumental configuration. The trio features tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Ted Nash, guitarist Steve Cardenas and bassist Ben Allison. The musicians come together neatly and with finesse. Listening to the record is like overhearing a great conversation at the next table. I’d award it a Grammy now if I could. To listen and buy, go here.

Here’s See Forever…

Paulo Almeida—Love in Motion (Dox). Drummer Paulo Almeida was born in Brazil and lives in Basel, Switzerland, so you wind up with a combination of Rio samba and Alpine cool. Almeida is backed by Lorenzo Vitolo (p,synths), Josh Schofield (as,ss), Joan Codina (b) and Paulo Almeida (d,vcl,perc), plus Jorge Rossy (vib) and Lisette Spinnler (vcl). The music is heady and free jazz-y in places, but it’s rich in texture and color, and once you fall into the feel, it’s quite an adventure. To hear and buy, go here.

Here’s the entire album, track by track…

Airto Moreira has never thought small. The Brazilian percussionist has an extraordinary imagination and an outsized gift for rhythm. Rather than add flavor here and there, as most percussionists are called upon to do, he became the center of attention when he began recording as a leader in the early 1970s.

Beginning with Natural Feelings (1970), his fi…

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I don’t know how Jordi Pujol of Fresh Sound Records in Barcelona does it, but he’s done it again. As part of his “Rare and Obscure Jazz Albums” series, he has just issued a superb two-fer.

This release shows yet again what a blessing Jordi has been, preserving the music’s expansive post-war catalog. Most other established U.S. labels have all but forgotten or ignored jazz beyond Miles, Duke and Louis.

The new single CD from Fresh Sound features the Bob Tulley Quintet and the Hall Daniels Septet. I’m not ashamed to admit that trumpeter Bob Tulley is new to me, probably because he recorded just one album—this one in 1954—and then disappeared from jazz discographies.

The other LP on the CD is by trumpeter Hall Daniels, who I do know, having posted in the past on Nash-ville: Zoot Sims/Dick Nash Octet. What I didn’t know until now, however, is that these tracks were originally for a Daniels-led date for a 10-inch LP on Jump Records. It was retitled Zoot Sims/Dick Nash for its 12-inch re-release with alternate tracks. As we know, familiar names pull in more buyers.

Recorded for Skylark Records in Hollywood over two days in August 1954, the Bob Tulley Quintet featured Bob Tulley (tp), Nash Maez (ts), Hunky Page (p), Paul Binnings (b) and Hank Milo (d). What’s most interesting about the eight tracks is that they were arranged by Willie Maiden.

Maiden, of course, is best known for his playing and arranging for Maynard Ferguson’s big bands in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. His very first recording as an alto saxophonist was on Perez Prado’s 1955 LP The Voodoo Suite. Who was he sitting next to in the band? Nash Maez, also on alto.

Even more interesting for Ferguson fans is that Maiden’s arrangements of Jeepers Creepers and Imagination for Tulley sound almost like demos for his charts of the same songs on Ferguson’s Boy With Lots of Brass in 1957. While the Jeepers Creepers arrangement of the Ferguson album was originally credited to Al Cohn, my guess is that this was an error and that Maiden handled it given the Tulley tracks.

All of Maiden’s arrangements here are terrific. The same goes for the playing. Tulley had a West Coast meets Miles Davis style on trumpet, while Maez sails along on tenor like Bill Holman. According to the original liner notes, the entire quintet was working with Ferguson at the time on live dates. One big happy family.

The tracks:

• Aladdin’s Dilemma (Bob Tulley)

• Jeepers Creepers

• Imagination

• Jazz Mambo (Bob Tulley)

• Jaywalker (Bob Tulley)

• Mood Indigo

• Skylark

• Midnight Romp (Bob Tulley)

Overall, the arrangements and playing are top-shelf examples of early West Coast jazz. That means lots of counterpoint and a laid back feel. You can really feel the warm, salty air coming off the Pacific and smell the ocean and pier pilings here. Given how good the album is, I can’t help but wonder why Tulley never recorded jazz again.

To buy, go here.

To listen, go here.

Here’s the Bob Tulley Quintet playing Jeepers Creepers with Maiden’s arrangement…

Here’s the Maynard Ferguson band’s 1957 rendition with Maiden’s arrangement…

Here’s Maiden’s arrangement of Imagination, featuring Irene Kral on her first big band date…

And here’s the Ferguson band playing Maiden’s chart, with Maiden taking the alto saxophone solo…

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In 1960, pianist Oscar Peterson was in the fourth of his many remarkable career peaks. There was the early duet peak for Clef/Mercury (1949-1951), the first trio peak for Clef/Mercury (1951-1953), the 1950s classic 12-inch trio peak for Verve and the touring trio recordings of the late 1950s and the early 1960s.

The year 1960 has long included a sizable gap in the discography of Peterson, Ray Brown (b) and Ed Thigpen (d). In March and April they toured extensively in Europe. In July they performed at the Newport Jazz Festival and then Baker’s Keyboard Lounge in Detroit. By then, Peterson was one of jazz’s most acclaimed and in-demand live trio performers and as fluid as can be.

Yet for years, the Baker’s Keyboard live performance tracks appeared in the Oscar Peterson Trio’s discography as “unissued” and the tapes simply sat in Verve’s vaults. It’s unclear why that was the case. Now, Verve has finally issued the complete 27 tracks recorded on April 19, 1960 as The Oscar Peterson Trio: Live at Baker’s Keyboard Lounge: The Complete Recordings. It’s quite a marvelous set.

Opened in 1934, Baker’s Keyboard Lounge sits at 20510 Livernois Ave. in Detroit and is considered the world’s oldest continuously operating jazz club. Yep, it’s still hosting artists today.

Founded by Francis Baker, the location began as a beer-and-sandwich restaurant in May 1934. After his father Francis’s stroke in 1939, Clarence Baker (1910-2003) took over management and turned it into a jazz club.

When the workload became overwhelming for him in 1996, he sold the venue to ex-bar owner Juanita Jackson, formerly of Juanita’s Lounge in northwest Detroit, and her partner, John Colbert. Then Hugh W. Smith and Eric J. Whitaker bought the club in February 2011.

In the early 1950s, Art Tatum reportedly picked out the club’s seven-foot Steinway that to this day gets tuned every week. Also in the 1950s, interior designer Blain Ford crafted the famous keyboard-shaped bar. A more in-depth look at the historic club’s evolution and design can be found here.

What sets this Peterson touring period apart is the pianist’s relaxed and steady pace. Thanks to the rhythmic guardrails created by Brown and Thigpen, Peterson works calmly, without overdoing his signature flourishes.

Later in the 1960s, he would begin what I call his rococo phase, when tempos increased and his piano playing became heavier and loaded with knotty fireworks. For me, that approach is exciting for a track or two before the layers of runs and his glissandi become oppressive. Not always, of course, but often.

On the Baker’s Lounge recording, Peterson isn’t darting here and there; his approach shows off plenty of technique, but it’s also one that the ear, brain and heart can absorb effortlessly. Pure joy.

Oscar Peterson died in 2007 at age 82.

The Oscar Peterson Trio: Live at Baker’s Keyboard Lounge is available in multiple formats: The complete recordings are on vinyl (three LPs), as a digital download and streaming. There also is a single LP with nine tracks and a single CD with eight tracks. You’ll find the formats here.

Here’s Sposin’…

Here’s Satin Doll…

And here’s Chicago…

I love Stan Getz, and nothing compares to Getz/Gilberto’s tender, seductive bossa nova, lyrical songs and perfect collaboration. But many bossa albums come close. Among them is Bud Shank - João Donato - Rosinha de Valença, recorded in Los Angeles for Brazil’s Elenco Records and released in 1965.

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I was 14 in 1971 and two years into a suburban stupor. My parents had moved an hour out of New York City in 1969 because they couldn’t afford private school for my younger brother and me in Manhattan. My younger brother loved the move. Not me.

That year, I also started taking the train alone into New York to buy jazz records at chain stores such as Sam G…

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Hands down, the Latin-jazz album of the year is the Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band’s Arsenio and Beyond (JazzHeads). Recorded live at New York’s Bronx Music Hall on March 15, 2025, the album pays tribute to Arsenio Rodriguez, the godfather of Salsa.

Rodriguez (1911-1970) was a Cuban musician, composer and bandleader who played the mandolin-sounding…

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No American musician had a greater influence on the creation of the bossa nova in Brazil than Bud Shank. Antonio Carlos Jobim said so to Bud Shank when they spent time together in the late 1950s (to read my full interview with Bud on the bossa nova, go here).

Shank was a multi-instrumentalist reed player who was first introduced to the music of Brazil t…

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Pianist Mal Waldron is best known for accompanying Billie Holiday from 1957 until her death in 1959. But he also was Prestige Records’ house pianist in the 1950s, appearing as a sideman on many albums released by the label. These were top LPs recorded by Gene Ammons, Jackie McLean, Kenny Burrell, Phil Woods, Thad Jones, Teo Macero, Paul Quinichette, Joh…

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My last post on trumpeter Charles Tolliver appeared in January, when I wrote about the return of the Strata-East record-label catalog now being reissued by the Mack Avenue Music Group. Tolliver co-founded Strata-East with pianist Stanley Cowell in 1970. About 50 albums later, in 1980, the label stopped recording and turned instead to licensing.

Strata-East was launched to allow jazz musicians to record original works they were most passionate about without enduring the confining marching orders of executives and producers at major labels.

Now, Mack Avenue is reissuing the Charles Tolliver All-Stars’ Right Now....and Then, remixed by Tolliver. The reissue has been cut directly from the original analog tapes, mastered by Kevin Gray, and pressed on 180-gram vinyl for Record Store Day on April 18. The CD and digital download will be available the same day here.

Recorded and released in 1968, the LP was Tolliver’s debut studio leadership LP at age 26. It featured Charles Tolliver (tp), Gary Bartz (as), Herbie Hancock (p) Ron Carter (b) and Joe Chambers (d). All-stars indeed!

In addition to Tolliver’s punctuating trumpet style reminiscent of Freddie Hubbard, Hancock’s piano is daring and enticing, Ron Carter’s bass is pulsing and constantly moving, and Joe Chambers’s drums are powerful without being overbearing. Plus Bartz is on three tracks and completely in sync with Tolliver’s approach.

The tracks (all compositions by Charles Tolliver):

A1. Earl's World

A2. Peace With Myself

A3. Right Now

B1. Household of Saud*

B2. Lil's Paradise*

B3. Paper Man*

*Gary Bartz added on alto saxophone

Right Now....and Then is a perfect post-bop album. It’s muscular and driven without being tormenting, and each artist contributes a different flavor. Unfortunately, a pair of gorgeous takes of Neal Hefti’s Repetition that were recorded at the session couldn’t fit on the vinyl but appear on the CD and digital download.

To listen to the album prior to the April 18 release, go to YouTube here or Bandcamp here.

Two tracks:

Here’s Household of Saud…

And here’s Repetition (Take 2)…

Yusef Lateef didn’t have a single sound. He had many. Lateef played mostly tenor saxophone and flute, but he also recorded on oboe, bassoon, bamboo flute, piano and a range of world-music wind instruments. He could be stormy and abstract and as gentle as a lamb—all on one track. He also loved pop as much as Pan African jazz and the avant-garde.

Now, Res…

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For years, you’ve watched the videos on YouTube of the Bill Evans Trio performing at the BBC in 1965. Now Elemental Music is releasing the music on a 180-gram, 2-LP deluxe set for Record Store Day on April 18 and one CD and digital download on April 24. The vinyl will be available only on Record Store Day.

I wrote the main liner notes for this release and interviewed Chuck Israels for his recollections and insights. As he said to me during our conversation: “Yes, we were damn near perfect at the BBC.”

To give you a feel for the glorious music on the upcoming release, I figured I’d share my liner notes up until the track-by-track breakdown:

Bill Evans performed at Britain’s BBC TV studios just once—on March 19, 1965. The TV show, “Jazz 625,” was taped at the BBC Television Theatre, a fanciful building designed by Frank Matcham in the Shepherd’s Bush section of West London. The music hall went up in 1903 and was acquired by the BBC in 1953. Today, it’s a popular music venue known as O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

“Jazz 625” aired on BBC2 from 1964 to 1966. The show’s odd name referred to the 625-lines UHF on which the BBC Two broadcast rather than the 405-lines VHF system used by other channels. The series was conceived immediately after the resolution of a long-running feud between the American Federation of Musicians and Britain’s Musician’s Union. For years prior, the U.S. had prohibited British artists and bands from performing in the States to protect American musicians from losing out on those paying jobs. The British union did the same in the U.K. All singers were exempt since they weren’t members of either musicians union.

In late 1963, those union bans became problematic with the meteoric rise of the Beatles. British EMI wanted the band to tour in the U.S. in support of their first American album, “Meet the Beatles,” on its Capitol subsidiary. The AFM agreed to let all British artists tour in the U.S., provided American musicians could open for them. Britain won the same arrangement in the U.K.

“Jazz 625” was a beneficiary of this truce. The series launched in April 1964 to showcase American and British jazz artists on television. Episodes were telerecorded onto 35mm film, which is why they look so crisp. Tickets could be purchased for the tapings, and the studio seated around 100 people. In March 1965, when the Bill Evans Trio performed, the show’s acerbic host was jazz trumpeter and clarinetist Humphrey Lyttelton.

The Bill Evans Trio that appeared that day for taping was Evans’s second working group and featured Evans on piano, Chuck Israels on bass and Larry Bunker on drums. Israels and Bunker had replaced Evans’s first trio—bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. Israels joined in 1961 following the death of LaFaro at age 25 in an auto accident. Bunker took over the drum chair from Motian after he departed in 1963 to play with pianist Paul Bley.

The Second Trio’s appearance on “Jazz 625” took place midway through their four-week run at London’s Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and came a month after the trio’s recording in February 1965 of “Trio ’65” (Verve), which wouldn’t be released until June. Earlier in the tour, the trio performed in Paris.

The music on this album will be familiar to many Bill Evans fans. The “Jazz 625” performance was released on DVD in the early 2000s and video clips have been up on YouTube for many years. So why issue the music now on audio? Hearing this music remastered, without the video, is a fascinating listen. Without the visual, you are forced to listen in a more attentive and granular way.

Rather than hear the music as background to what you are seeing, you feel it and the trio’s excellence more deeply. Upon listening to the music on this album, I gasped. The trio here is at its peak, playing music that is un-rushed, caressing and gorgeous. “Yes, we were damn near perfect at the BBC,” said Israels in an interview for these notes. “We were playing music that was deeply familiar, which was freeing and comforting.”

London, at this point in time, was transitioning from a rigid 1950s, post-war mentality to a more swinging, youthful rendition of itself. Yet Evans on the tour was highly introverted, eager to return to his hotel room. Said Israels: “If you spoke to Bill, he would have a perfectly fine conversation with you. I didn’t engage with him off-stage because of my own fears, neurosis and misunderstanding of what his heroin use was doing to him, He was coherent, brilliant and verbally articulate, but strangely withdrawn and spent all of his downtime in his room with his first wife, Ellaine. They were both heroin addicts.”

At the BBC, the trio performed two half-hour sets, played back-to-back, without a break, according to Israels. There also wasn’t a rehearsal or shared song list. Israels and Bunker discerned the songs Evans was about to play from his piano introductions. Both sets opened and closed with Evans’s theme, “Five,” and Lyttelton delivered a different spoken introduction for each of them. This double-header allowed the BBC2 to air the first set on May 12, 1965 and the second on December 29.

What has always struck me about the trio’s “Jazz 625” video is their undertaker somberness and the audience’s subdued reaction, at least by today’s standards, to what is breathtaking, emotional music. “Our demeanor had nothing to do with timidity or stage fright,” said Israels. “The message we were projecting is that we weren’t entertainers, that our music spoke for itself. Bill was also impatient to get back to the music. As for the audience, the British back then tended to be quite reserved, but I sense their inertia had something to do with them recognizing that the music was an abstract representation of what it feels like to be a human being in their society at that moment in time.”

To find a record store near you, go here. I recommend calling the store to see if they will be carrying the new album on Record Store Day.

Here’s How My Heart Sings…

Here’s the video…

Like young spring flowers, new music is beautiful and uplifting. Each week, I receive dozens of new albums and most get tossed as I go through them so you don’t have to. I’m screening for recordings that move me or have merit. All of the albums in my March roundup below can be heard on streaming platforms and are available for purchase.

Here are the Mar…

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From March 17th to the 21st in 1976, the Ahmad Jamal Trio appeared at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago, a club that is still in operation. Pianist Jamal was backed by bassist John Heard and drummer Frank Gant. On the 20th and 21st, their performance was taped by the club’s owner, Joe Segal, with Jamal’s permission. They were long-time friends. [Photo above …

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Along with John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley and Stanley Turrentine, Joe Henderson was among the leading tenor saxophonists of the 1960s. By 1967, he had released five spectacular Blue Note albums—Page One, Our Thing, In ‘n Out, Inner Urge and Mode for Joe. A live album, Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs, was issued by Blue Note in 2024. [Photo of Joe Henderson above by Francis Wolff © Blue Note Records]

Henderson was a muscular player and a brilliant and fast improviser with a rich tone. What made him special was his ability to tell a story when improvising, which made him highly engaging.

Now, Craft Recordings has re-issued Tetragon, originally produced by Orrin Keepnews for his Milestone label in 1967 and ‘68. The new LP appears on 180-gram vinyl cut from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio.

The record features two different quartets and is a powerful reminder of how gifted Henderson was playing straight-ahead, modal and avant-garde jazz. The two quartets featured Joe Henderson (ts), Don Friedman/Kenny Barron (p), Ron Carter (b) and Jack DeJohnette/Louis Hayes (d).

In a Q&A interview on the back of the album, Keepnews asked Henderson about the experience of recording with two different groups…

Orrin Keepnews: Listening to the results, can you find much difference in your own playing on the two dates that you would attribute to the influence of the different sets of players?

Joe Henderson: Well, for example, listening to Invitation, I was aware that Don [Friedman] has probably a little more of a romantic approach; his music is a little more sensual, a little softer—while Kenny, I think, is more involved with rhythm. Kenny’s things sort of land on the beat a little more, while Don just sort of flows. On that level, I think anyone would be influenced by what’s happening around him, by the musical context; and I certainly do react and sound different.

The tracks:

1. Invitation

2. R.J. (Ron Carter)

3. The Bead Game (Joe Henderson)

4. Tetragon (Joe Henderson)

5. Waltz for Sweetie (Walter Bishop Jr.)

6. First Trip (Ron Carter

7. I’ve Got You Under My Skin

The personnel:

Tracks 1, 2, 3 and 5: Joe Henderson (ts), Don Friedman (p), Ron Carter (b) and Jack De Johnette (d), recorded on May 16, 1968

Tracks 4, 6 and 7: Joe Henderson (ts), Kenny Barron (p), Ron Carter (b) and Louis Hayes (d), recorded on September 27, 1967

As a late 1960’s recording, Tetragon has it all. Invitation is a mid-tempo ballad with loads of Henderson’s sleek improvisation; R.J. is a modal work; The Bead Game is free jazz; Tetragon is straight-ahead; First Trip is a smart blues; Waltz for Sweetie captures an intellectual joy prevalent in 1960s New York; and I’ve Got You Under My Skin is straight-ahead and marvelous.

To buy, go here.

Here’s Joe Henderson’s Tetragon, track by track…

If you are a paid subscriber (and if not, all you need to do is upgrade)…

You can read my 2007 interview with Orrin Keepnews here.

You can read my 2009 interview with Don Friedman here.

You can read my 2008 interview with Ron Carter here.

And you can read my 2010 interview with Louis Hayes here.

Today is day 5 of Jim Hall Week. I hope you have enjoyed listening to and reading about him. He remains one of jazz’s finest guitarists, both as a rhythm player and a soloist.

In the May 14, 1959 issue of Down Beat magazine, there appeared an article entitled “The Problems of Sonny Stitt.” During his interview with the saxophonist, jazz writer Dave Bitta…

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