Since Yellowjackets’ eponymous 1981 debut album, the group has hewed its own creative path, influencing colleagues with enviable compositional craftsmanship and an ever-shifting blend of influences. In many ways Yellowjackets embody both continuity and renewal, with founding­ pianist/keyboardist Russell Ferrante providing the four-decade thread first joined by Will Kennedy­, who took over the drum chair from 1987-99 and returned to the fold in 2010. Bob Mintzer, a Jacket since 1990, contributes on tenor and soprano saxophones and EWI.  The bass chair in ..read more

Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s Bossa Nova-themed animated film They Shot the Piano Player will be in wide release nationwide from Sony Classic Pictures this week. Trueba and Mariscal are the duo behind the 2012 Academy Award nominated Chico and Rita, and their latest work features a who’s who of the best of Brazilian music, including João Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Vinicius de Moraes, Milton Nascimento and Paulo Moura. The film follows a New York music journalist who goes on a quest to uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of young Brazilian p ..read more

The legendary George Coleman’s latest project is a release from hard-bop supergroup One For All, an album appropriately called Big George on Smoke Sessions Records. One For All is composed of tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander, trumpeter Jim Rotondi, trombonist Steve Davis, pianist David Hazeltine, bassist John Webber, and drummer Joe Farnsworth. Coleman joins the group on three tracks, the Rotondi original “Oscar Winner,” standard “My Foolish Heart,” and Hank Mobley’s “This I Dig of You.” Coleman is approaching his 89th birthday, and still plays with the class ..read more

New York’s premier hard-bop supergroup, One for All has evolved over the course of its quarter-century history from a sextet of young torchbearers to an assemblage of the music’s most revered traditionalists. Just how in-demand these six artists have become can be traced by the span of time that elapses between albums. 2016’s The Third Decade followed its predecessor by five years; seven years of that decade have now passed before the band’s long-awaited follow-up, Big George. Due out March 15, 2024 from Smoke Sessions Records, Big George features t ..read more

Italy-born, Long Island, New York-based saxophonist and arranger Ada Rovatti’s seventh album as a leader, The Hidden World of Piloo is deeply personal, and stylistically varied. It features six improvisationally rich instrumentals that include blues grooves, samba vibes, straight-up lyricism, melancholic balladry and a comedic finale. Two songs include strings; another features the dobro, a country instrument unlikely to be in a jazz song. In a change for Ada, several compositions showcase top-tier vocalists, including jazz-poll champion Kurt Elling, the Netherlands jazz si ..read more

In Part One of our conversation, pianist and composer Sullivan Fortner talked about the creation of his latest release, the creative two-disc Solo Game. One disc is solo piano, the result of a curation in the studio with his mentor Fred Hersch, and the other electric keyboard and other musical toys to create both composed through and improvised soundscapes.  Part Two talks about future Fornter projects, like his coming performance with the National Symphony in `Washington DC to salute Duke Ellington and a choir-based recording to begin later in the year. We also talk about his work with&n ..read more

The latest release from the rising star Sullivan Fortner shows off two very different sides of his musical pallet – lyrical and moving solo piano, and electronic explorations. Both will leave you wanting more, and to hear what he has next up his sleeve. Frustrated by his lack of musical outlets during the pandemic, “Game,” the second of two discs that make up Solo Game came first. Visiting a studio in Brooklyn to consider a project, Fortner began employing a range of instruments and effects — Fender Rhodes, Hammond B3, Moog, vocoder, celesta, chimes, drums, an immense variety of percussion (an ..read more

Giorgi Mikadze (pronounced “Gih-ohr-gih Mih-kahd-zeh”) is a pianist who values his heritage and roots, having been born and raised in Georgia, at the foot of the Caucasus mountains. While his training and early carer arch may have seemed typical for an aspiring jazz musician – classical training, Berklee and Manhattan School of Music studies, time on the road with his elders – his choice of music is not. Rather than concentrate on the Great American Songbook or record only his own compositions, Giorgi has adapted Georgia music, from folk songs to movie scores. This process comes to a new high ..read more

Following in the footsteps of the giants of solo piano who have recorded for ECM Records, Call on the Old Wise is Nitai Hershkovits’ first record as a leader for the famous label, presenting his powerful pianistic ingenuity in a largely improvised solo setting. A veteran of Oded Tzur’s quartet (he appears on Isabela and Here Be Dragons), Nitai was also a mainstay of Avishai Cohen’s trio from 2011 to 2016. The album is partially dedicated to Nitai’s former piano teacher Suzan Cohen, with whom he studied in Jerusalem and who according to Nitai is the mentor to whom the term ..read more

As 2023 comes to a close, Straight No Chaser posts a few conversations with artists who produced memorable albums this year. Today’s podcast features bassist Buster Williams, who released Unalome on the Smoke Sessions label this past winter. While the band on Unalome is familiar – drummer Lenny White, pianist George Colligan, alto saxophonist Bruce Williams and Vibes master Stefon Harris are all long-time running partners – the album adds vocalist Jean Baylor for covers and Williams originals that take his music in a less familiar territory. One of the most revered bassists of the last half ce ..read more