New Albums - Page 111

Craig Strain’s band Pickpocket has released its debut album, Sojourn, after a decade’s worth of work. Strain, who is the band’s leader, primary songwriter and bassist, first began playing bass at age 14. He’s worked in a variety of genres throughout his career, including jazz, hip hop, folk, pop, rock, country, rnb, soul and funk. And now, he’s celebrating the...

Jazz bassist Matt Brewer (Greg Osby, Steve Coleman, Vijay Iyer) leads a quintet on his latest recording, Unspoken. All the members of the quintet are top-notch players and improvisers younger than 40: tenor saxophonist Ben Wendel, pianist Aaron Parks, guitarist Charles Altura and drummer Tyshawn Sorey. Together, they bring to life seven original Brewer compositions, and their versions of Bill...

The Robert Glasper Experiment’s exploration of jazz and hip-hop continues on the group’s latest, ArtScience. The band’s bassist, Derrick Hodge, whose sophomore solo album The Second dropped in August (check out the No Treble interview), not only holds down the low end, but also sings one of the record’s first singles, “Find You,” according to Billboard. The core band members...

Serbian bassist Nenad Vasilic, known for his blend of jazz and Balkan styles, has released his first trio recording, Wet Paint. Vasilic, who previously recorded in slightly larger groups, focused on walking the line between vintage and modern sounds with his trio and even reached into his own past in the attempt. The album includes a cover of his favorite...

Etienne Mbappe handles both bass and lead vocals on his fourth solo effort, How Near How Far, released under the name, Etienne Mbappe & the Prophets. Mbappe (John McLaughlin’s 4th Dimension, Joe Zawinul, Robben Ford, Slif Keita, Ray Charles, Steps Ahead, Bill Evans) has focused more on instrumentation than vocals on this record. “The concept of the Prophets,” Mbappé said,...

Led Zeppelin has re-released its 1997 BBC sessions collection as the The Complete BBC Sessions, featuring eight previously unreleased sessions from BBC radio. All the recordings of the band, featuring bassist John Paul Jones, were captured during BBC radio performances between 1969 and 1971. The previously unreleased recordings include three performances from a 1969 session once believed to be lost....

A live performance from the late, great jazz vocalist and pianist Shirley Horn has been remastered and released as Live at the 4 Queens. The May 2, 1988 show at the 4 Queens Hotel & Casino featured Horn in her longstanding trio of bassist Charles Ables (d. 2001, and who switched from guitar to bass to join her group) and...

The Devin Townsend Project has released its seventh studio album, Transcendence. The record, from the progressive metal group led by Townsend (Strapping Young Lad, Steve Vai) features the huge, epic sound for which Townsend is known, as well as his take on the Ween song, “Transdermal Celebration.” The band has double bass cred this time out, too, featuring not only...

The story of baseball’s longest game, and the book written about it – Dan Barry’s Bottom of the 33rd, inspired jazz outfit Saltman Knowles’ latest effort, Almost. The book reflects the players’ commitment and dedication to the game, even if they weren’t destined to make it in the major league (the game was a minor league contest). They continued to...

The Ron Carter Quartet, led by the inimitable and prolific jazz bassist/cellist/composer, Ron Carter, has collaborated with vocalist Vitoria Meldonado to create the record, Brasil L.I.K.E. (short for Love, Inspiration, Knowledge and Energy). The Grammy-winning Carter is working with American and Brazilian standards in bossa nova on the album, and creating excerpts of jazz within each song. The record also...

Alabama’s St. Paul & The Broken Bones is back with a sophomore slab of retro-soul on Sea of Noise. The eight-piece band says the album is more reflective of its tastes than its debut, Half the City, and depends less on belting from lead singer Paul Janeway and more on incorporating his voice into the arrangements, according to a Wall...

ZZ Top has the longest-lasting original lineup of any major rock band – the Texas trio of Billy Gibbons (guitar), Dusty Hill (bass) and Frank Beard (drums) have remained together for more than 45 years. But until now, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers have gone without releasing a live album. More than four decades on, they’ve assembled LIVE...