The Listening Guide
🎶 The listening guide: five albums, released during the past twelve months, chosen around a weekly theme 🎶
This week, we explore five cutting-edge, percussion-led projects in which acoustic instrumentation meets with synthesizers, experimental processing, triggered sounds and more.
Album of the Week
Our NQ Jazz Album of the Week is the Uptown Jazz Tentet’s What’s Next. Described by co-leaders Brandon Lee (trumpet and flugelhorn), Willie Applewhite (trombone), and James Burton III (trombone and bass trombone) as, ‘an album about optimism and artistic beauty in the face of adversity’, it features ten wonderful tunes, including renditions of Ellington’s In a sentimental mood and Kenny Barron’s Voyage. Support the project on Bandcamp, or the group’s website!
Classic Album
Released sixty years ago this month, saxophonist Hank Mobley’s suave, sprightly, soulful and sophisticated masterpiece Soul Station is our classic album of the week. Recorded at the legendary Van Gelder studio and featuring Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Blakey on drums, it’s one of the finest albums of its era and of the distinguished Blue Note catalogue.