The staff gauged the rate at which the postwoman is depositing new releases in the Rifftides mailbox and decided that we should pick up the pace of telling you about some of them. This will be the most recent of many doomed attempts to let you know about a flood of jazz albums that seems only to gain in size and speed. If we are to keep up, brevity is a must, even for the most important arrivals.
Let’s begin by continuing our occasional series calling attention to the bands of the US military services. The Airmen Of Note are the big jazz band of the United States Air Force. Their latest release is a three-CD set with guest artists Cyrille Amée, the French singer whose popularity keeps rising; veteran pianist Kenny Barron; and New Orleans saxophonist Branford Marsalis. Each of them stars on one of the discs. In his set, Marsalis runs a gamut that includes a Japanese folk song, compositions by Irving Berlin, John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter, the 1947 hit “I’ll Close My Eyes” and, from 1913, Raymond Hubbell’s “Panama,” which went on to become one of the first standards in the jazz repertoire. For this classic, Marsalis chose the soprano sax.
If you get a “video unavailable” screen, please paste this link into your browser and we’ll hope that it takes you to the video:
The staff is working on this connectivity problem.
Come back soon for reviews of–or alerts to–further recent releases
Mark Mohr says
May 23, 2019 at 7:05 pmI’m curious. What’s the correct term for the music product these days: is it a release? a recording? a CD? an album? The latter two seem to be going the way of the dinosaur. But just about everybody still says “film” or “filming” when describing recording video on their phone. There’s no film involved. None. It’s not keeping me up at night but I’m just curious by nature.
Doug Ramsey says
May 23, 2019 at 8:30 pmI think “a recording” is safe. That can cover tapes, LPs, CDs, but probably not film. I suggest we make sure that usage and context clarify which medium we’re talking about.
Donna Shore says
May 28, 2019 at 11:06 amMy favorite new album is Alan Broadbent’s “New York Notes”. The first cut, “Clifford Notes” is a masterpiece.
With Harvie S & Billy Minz, the best trio I’ve heard in a long time. This CD may get worn out, a first for me.