This week’s Cosmic Jazz is dedicated to the music of Brazil. We’ve long been fans of the diversity of music in this huge South American country. Like Japan, there’s something special about the way it takes a musical genre and twists it into a unique sound. So, acknowledging the recent death of Brazilian singer Astrud Gilberto, this time we’re focusing on some of our favourite Brazilian sounds both old and new.
1. Otis Trio – Montag’s Dream from 74 Club
Sāo Paulo’s Otis Trio released their 74 Club album in 2014 – and then seem to have fallen silent. Surprisingly perhaps, their roots lie the European and American free jazz scenes of the 60s and 70s. Some five years in gestation and recorded on vintage analogue equipment for period authenticity, 74 Club is (as the Far Out press release of the time noted) both deftly subtle and furiously intense with the standard trio configuration of guitar, bass and drums augmented with both vibes and a posse of free blowing horn players who together create a sound which reverberates with echoes of Ornette Coleman, Sonny Sharrock and Pharoah Sanders. Whew! Montag’s Dream may start off as more of a straight ahead modal excursion with vibes very much to the fore – but it’s not long before some Pharonic tenor sax kicks in. We like it and we hope you do too.
2. Stan Getz/Joāo Gilberto – The Girl From Ipanema from Getz/Gilberto
Up next was Astrud Gilberto herself from her first recording with her then husband Joāo Gilberto and saxophonist Stan Getz. There are numerous stories around on how this young, inexperienced singer appeared on the record but her appearance inaugurated the whispery, vocal version of that languid, delicate characteristic of the bossa nova – nylon strung guitars creating a reduction/synthesis of samba percussion. Gilberto – who died earlier this month aged 83 – sang on just two tracks on this 1964 album but this was enough to seal her place in musical history. The Girl from Ipanema might be seen as nothing more than a wine bar cliché but the lyrics remain a powerful evocation of Rio’s most famous district. We played the edited 45 single version of the tune which omits the Brazilian lyrics of Joāo Gilberto but emphasises those carioca qualities of the girl ‘who passes by’.
3. Antonio Carlos Jobim – Wave from Wave
The writer of The Girl from Ipanema, Tom Jobim, is one of Brazil’s greatest composers. The album Wave from 1967 was arranged by Claus Ogerman following his move from Germany to become the house arranger at Verve Records and so co-created hundreds of records including albums by Wes Montgomery, George Benson and Diana Krall. Wave features two of Jobim’s most famous tunes – the title track and the beautiful Triste – and is the definition of that Brazilian style in which evocative and sometimes complex lyrics are embedded in an unforgettable melody: the fundamental loneliness goes whenever two can dream a dream together…
4. Baden Powell – Coisa No. 1 from Baden Powell Meets Jimmy Pratt
From the heydays of the bossa wave comes a successful cooperation between Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell and American drummer Jimmy Pratt on the unimaginatively-titled album Baden Powell Swings with Jimmy Pratt. Composer of our choice Coisa No.1, Moacir Santos is heard here on baritone saxophone. You can listen to the original orchestrated version of that Santos tune right here on the album Coisa from 1965. Coisa just means ‘thing’ and each of these ten ‘things’ are mini-masterpieces. It’s a bonafide Cosmic Jazz recommendation. Guitarist Baden Powell was, of course, deeply influenced by jazz but was also a more than proficient classical guitarist whose favourite composers included Bach and Tárrega. For another side to Baden Powell, check out Canto from his excellent MPS album Images on Guitar from 1972.
5. Tamba Trio – Influēncia do Jazz from Tamba Trio
Perhaps the most talented of all the bossa nova group of the 1960s, Tamba Trio pretty much created the bossa-pop sound, fusing bossa nova melodies with close harmony vocals. Their take on Jorge Ben’s Mas Que Nada became the best-known version of that much-covered tune. Influēncia do Jazz comes from their first self-titled album, itself full of excellent tunes including compositions Luíz Eça from the band, Jobim and Joāo Donato. In 1968, Eça reformed the band as Tamba 4 and recorded two albums for Creed Taylor’s CTI label – We and the Sea and Samba Blim. Both are worth looking out for with the former including a great take on their earlier hit Consolaçāo.
6. Sandra (de) Sá – Ohlos Coloridos from Sandra Sá (5)
Neil first heard this record when crate digging in the Brazilian section in a small regional record shop in the UK. Ohlos Coloridos or Colourful Eyes is the standout track from her fifth self titled album (1986). It’s based on an infectious guitar and bass riff and the lyrics refer to Sá’s Cape Verdean ancestry – You laugh at my clothes/You laugh ar my hair/You laugh at my skin/You laugh at my smile/But the truth is: you also/Have creole blood. In Brazil, tri-racial people with African, European and Amerindian heritage are referred to as sarará. Check out this live version from Brazilian television to capture some of this song’s energy.
7. Marcos Valle – Cinzento from Cinzento
Marcos Valle is something of a Cosmic Jazz hero. Neil has been lucky enough to see him live in the UK and has written previously on the Cosmic Jazz blog pages about the personal importance of Valle’s music but this is the title track on Valle’s most recent record. The set was recorded in 2020 for the independent DeckDisc label and there while there are some references back to earlier records, Valle looked to a younger generation of artists as his lyricists. These include Kassin, Moreno Veloso and rapper Emicida, who appears on two tracks on the album including this one. Cinzento (or Grey) includes poetic lyrics about the recycling not of materials but of time and life itself. In the bridge, Valle sings: In everything I find grace/Even in the midst of disgrace/I understand and laugh at grace/That life is still for free…if everything is a cycle, I recycle and become more beautiful… While Cinzento doesn’t have the dancefloor pace of its predecessor Sempre from 2019, it’s instead a change of pace and a reaffirmation of how Valle (an impossibly youthful 79) remains a composer and performer of rare sophistication.
8. Stan Getz/Joāo Gilberto – Corcovado from Getz/Gilberto
And so we return to the inspiration for this show – the unique voice of Astrud Gilberto. Corcovado was written by Tom Jobim and is an evocation of the mountain outside Rio on which the iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer stands looking out over the city. The subtitle of the song is Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars and reference a view of the mountain from the city: Quiet nights of quiet stars/Quiet chords from my guitar/Floating on the silence that surrounds us/Quiet thoughts and quiet dreams/Quiet walks by quiet streams/And a window that looks out on Corcovado… The English lyrics by Gene Rees conclude in that typically lyrically Brazilian way: I, who was lost and lonely/Believing life was only/A bitter, tragic joke have found with you/The meaning of existence, oh, my love… There are numerous versions of this endlessly malleable song – for something different, try this surprisingly subtle drum and bass take on Corcovado from Everything But the Girl, featuring similarly breathy vocals from Tracey Thorn.
9. Sabrina Malheiros – Clareia from Clareia
Sabrina Malheiros was born in Rio and is the daughter of Alex Malheiros – bass player with Azymuth and now the only surviving member of the original trio. Title tune Clareia comes from her 2017 album on the UK’s Far Out label. As with much of Malheiros’ music for the label, the tune was written in collaboration with her father and producer Daniel Maunick – son of Bluey Maunick, founder of British jazzfunk legends Incognito. Father Alex plays bass on much of the album and it’s a classy effort that’s well worth exploring. Incidentally, Alex Malheiros continues to record his own material – his most recent album Tempos Futuros emerged in 2021 – here’s the track Prece which returns the favour with Sabrina on vocals. Finally, there’s a rather good IG Culture remix of Clareia that will get you moving – the 12inch record is still available here on Discogs.
We return to a more jazzy mix for the next show – look out on Twitter and Facebook for news.
Our tribute begins with Greetings to Idris from that wonderful Journey to the One album. Idris is, of course, drummer Idris Muhammad who went on to release his own eclectic funk-driven albums. On the reflective Kazuko (Peace Child) he incorporates the Japanese koto, just as McCoy Tyner did on his superb Sahara album. Journey to the One also features Coltrane’s After The Rain in a straight reading much like 
Greetings to Idris is appropriately followed by Morning Prayer from 1971’s Thembi, the fourth of those Impulse! albums and featuring Lonnie Liston Smith on keyboards, Michael White on violin and Roy Haynes on drums. Recorded with two different ensembles, Thembi was a departure from the slowly developing, side-long, mantra-like grooves Pharoah Sanders had been pursuing on his earlier Impulse! albums. The tunes are much more concise but also more diverse too – lots of percussion, a bass solo from Cecil McBee (on the track simply called Love) and 
The first of Neil’s choices and a tune which features Sanders’ distinctive screeching over Sonny Sharrock’s hypnotic guitar line and Henry Grimes’ magical bassline. We featured just the second half of this side-long piece. The tune has been sampled and used in a number of different contexts: the bass line in Herbie Hancock’s 
Wisdom Through Music is one the lesser known Impulse! releases but it features some fine music, including High Life – something of an outlier in the Sanders canon. As the title suggests, High Life is a tribute to the music style of West Africa and Sanders really does emulate the high life style with an stellar band including Joe Bonner on piano, Cecil McBee and several percussionists, including Miles Davis alumni Mtume and Badal Roy. This record and Village of the Pharoahs were reissued by Impulse! on a single CD in 2011 and this ‘two for one’ set is worth looking out for. Village of the Pharoahs is probably the stronger album of the two, but both records (released originally in 1973) have their great moments.
Next up is from one of the best of the Theresa label albums, Shukuru from 1985. We could probably do without the synth choir but Jitu is a sparking tune. Support comes from William Henderson on keys (including the rather dated sounding Kursweil 520), Ray Drummond on bass and Idris Muhammad again on drums – and vocalist Leon Thomas on two tunes. There are a couple of standards from the American songbook here – something Sanders would increasingly include in his later albums. So first up is Sanders’ take on Body and Soul (recorded by Coltrane too) which has a spacious, lush and more conventional sound as does the second Coltrane-influenced tune – Too Young to Go Steady, which appeared on Coltrane’s 
The later, more lyrical Sanders is also featured on a more unusual album – a collaboration with Gnawa master guimbri player Maleem Mahmoud Ghania. Peace in Essaouira begins with an extensive Sanders solo – and it’s a good one. Ghania is heard on lead vocals, tbel (tambourine), and Guimbri, a bass-like, hollow-bodied instrument roughly three feet in length. The body, which can be struck by the musician as the strings are plucked, is covered with camel skin, while the strings are made from goat intestines. The title of the album refers to the fact that in Gnawa trance ceremonies (which can last eight or more hours over one night) the Maleem, or master musician, guides the group through a cycle of invocation of seven spirit states, each of which is characterised by a different colour, rhythm, melody and type of incense. Originally released in 1994 on bassist/ producer Bill Laswell’s Axiom imprint, The Trance Of Seven Colors is a wonderful record – and easy to get hold of now that it’s a recent reissue on vinyl – you can track it down 
It was to be expected that Sanders had something of a cult following in Japan, beginning in 1966 when Coltrane took on his first and only tour of the country leading to the Live in Japan recording from 1973. This included less than half of the two concerts which were only released in their entirety in a 4CD set in 1991. Sanders’ playing here is definitely at the more extreme end of his repertoire! More typical of Sander’s later output is this collaboration with Japanese jazzers Sleep Walker on their album The Voyage from 2006. Led by keyboard player Hajime Yoshizawa, Masato Nakamura on saxes, Tomokazu Sugimoto on bass and Nobuaki Fujii on drums. Sanders appears only on the final title track and is superb – but the album is worth getting hold of for the other tracks too (a couple of which feature vocals from Bémbé Ségué and Yukimi Nagano). There are copies available on Discogs – have a look 
We went back to Pharoah Sanders with John Coltrane for the next choice – from the recently unearthed live version of A Love Supreme, recorded in Seattle at the Penthouse Club in 1965. The music on this unique take on A Love Supreme is pretty extraordinary. The recording places Elvin Jones’ drums front and centre but the additions to Coltrane’s regular quartet (Coltrane, Jones, McCoy Tyner and Jimmy Garrison) of Pharoah Sanders on tenor, alto saxophonist Carlos Ward and a second bassist, Donald ‘Raphael’ Garrett, changes both the sound and the feel of the music. The spiritual fire of A Love Supreme is now added to with the more chaotic, ‘out there’ approach brought largely to the group by Sanders. It’s magnificently executed and – as a record of where Coltrane was heading in his later years – well worth getting hold of.
Next up in this Pharoah Sanders special is a live take on The Creator Has a Master Plan from a 1975 concert in Paris from an album 
Pianist Orrin Evans studied with Kenny Barron at Rutgers University, played as a sideman with various groups, spent three years with The Bad Plus and then decided to branch out on his own. The result is The Magic of Now album for which he’s assembled a quartet. It includes Bill Stewart on drums, with whom he had played in Steve Wilson’s band and of whom he says his cymbal choice, the tuning of his tom-tom, the way he plays his bass drum It’s not like anybody else and alto sax the is the young player Immanuel Wilkins, whose recent album The 7th Hand we have featured previously on Cosmic Jazz. Incidentally, Wilkins as an 11 year-old attended a summer camp where Evans was an instructor. Now Evans says can hear in his music and conversation a dedication to culture, a dedication to building a library, a dedication to history. On bass is Vicente Archer who provides a powerful drive to the opening of Mynah (composed by Stewart), before Evans and Wilkins come in with their solos. Without a break the tune goes effortlessly into the Mulgrew Miller tune The Eleventh Hour which Evans had been determined to record for some time.
Melissa Aldana is a tenor saxophonist born in 1988 in Santiago, Chile who was already playing in Santiago jazz clubs in her teens where she was spotted by Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez. He invited invited her to play at the Panama Jazz Festival – and also to apply for US music schools. She ended up training at the Berklee College of Music before moving to New York to train under veteran tenor player George Coleman. The album 12 Stars is her first solo recording for Blue Note, although she has previously recorded for the label with the group Artemis, whose record we’ve also played on Cosmic Jazz. The title is linked to the tarot symbols which she studied during lockdown and then composed music for each of the symbols. Los Ojos de Chile (The Eyes of Chile) was inspired by the uprisings of people in Chile who got shot by police officers using riot shotguns with rubber bullets. Many of them lost their sight. Chilean musicians in New York played and raised money for an organisation called Los Ojos de Chile which provided money for those who were affected and so it’s not surprising that the music on the album has, overall, a sense of gravity, intensity and deep sincerity.
Drummer Jack DeJohnette is one of our Cosmic Jazz heroes. Neil was lucky enough to see him perform in London in 2005 when he celebrated the music of Miles Davis and in particular the album Jack Johnson. With a backdrop screening of William Cayton’s legendary 1971 documentary charting the life of the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world, DeJohnette was teamed up with four of the British scene’s hottest young musicians – saxophonist Jason Yarde; trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist Byron Wallen; David Okumu on guitar; and Neville Malcolm holding down the bass. It was a memorable demonstration of DeJohnette’s tumbling drum rolls matched to the fight footage, with cymbal crashes accentuating each jab from Johnson. But DeJohnette is much more than a heavyweight percussionist. He was the drummer in Keith Jarrett’s longtime standards trio but he began his career in the influential Charles Lloyd group of the 1960s before working with Miles Davis on Bitches Brew in 1970. He moved to ECM Records in the mid 70s for a sequence of superb albums – we chose his take on Coltrane’s India from the essential Special Edition record – a first outing for his group, with saxophonists David Murray and Arthur Blythe in tow. The track follows their take on Central Park West, another Coltrane standard from his 1960 album Coltrane’s Sound – check it out 
Originally released in 1976 and promptly proclaimed a landmark of British jazz-rock (Melody Maker termed it “one of the great musical achievements of our age”), Kaleidoscope of Rainbows includes contributions from Ian Carr, Tony Coe, Dave MacRae (no relation!) and saxophonist Barbara Thompson who died recently. The record was very much part of the astonishingly vibrant British jazz scene of the time, recently captured in the superb Tony Higgins compilation Journeys in Modern Jazz: Britain (2021) – check out a Guardian newspaper review 
High Pulp are an experimental Seattle collective with a cross-pollinated jazz fusion, hip-hop, post-rock, and electronic sound. Mutual Attraction Vol. 1 is the first of three EPs that were further expanded on in their 2022’s Pursuit of Ends album. Before that came three Mutual Attraction albums, with this one celebrating the music of Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra. Much of the group’s sound stems from drummer/bandleader Bobby Granfelt’s infectious beats and here he’s joined by longtime bandmates keyboardists Rob Homan and Antoine Martel, guitarist Scott Rixon, and saxophonists Andrew Morrill and Victory Nguyen. Together, they play with a textured, deeply analog groove aesthetic that draws from a wide array of influences but here tempered to focus on the more hypnotic spiritual elements of these three influences. All three Mutual Attraction EPs are worth exploring – with Vol. 2 focused on beatmaster J Dilla and Vol.3 on rapper Frank Ocean.
We first featured this duo in 2021, when we also played their take on John Coltrane’s Wise One. Saxophone elder Archie Shepp and pianist Jason Moran first met
We’ve featured this excellent album from singer Somi before on CJ. Zenzile is an ambitious and fully realised tribute to South African singer Miriam Makeba and it’s really something special. The lead single was a take on Makeba’s classic 
On the principle that if you like jazz you will like this, it seems appropriate to remember Lamont Dozier who died earlier this month. He is undoubtedly best known as a member of Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team for Motown that produced hits for Marvin Gaye, Martha & the Vandellas, The Four Tops, The Isley Brothers, The Supremes and many others. After the partnership broke up Lamont Dozier went solo and later worked and supported other musicians. Derek has two much-loved solo albums Bittersweet (1979) and Peddlin’ Music On The Side (1977). It is on the latter that Dozier’s masterpiece Going Back To My Roots can be found. At the time he was working with the South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela and, along with McKinley Jackson, Masekela arranged the rhythm for the tune. It is a tune that builds and builds with strident piano (Joe Sample), thumping bass (Wilton Fender), up-front percussion (Paulinho da Costa and Bill Summers), a heavenly choral response and occasional whistles and screams. It is a joyful, exhilarating and wonderful experience – a must-hear/must-have record. Going back to my Roots/To the place of my birth/Back down to earth sings Dozier and these words along words in the chorus from an unspecified African language, the use of Nigerian saxophonist Orlando Julius (not credited on the record sleeve) and the percussive sounds have led to the assumption that this was Dozier’s statement of African consciousness inspired by the Roots TV series. But in an interview with Blues & Soul in 1977, Dozier denied this and stated that while living in Los Angeles his roots were in Detroit and he needed to keep returning there. Some still continue to interpret it otherwise. There have been several covers of the tune but the original is the one. Play it loud – celebrate and enjoy.
The show starts – as it has done before – with soulful, jazzy grooves and beats from the Boston-based funk outfit Lettuce. Unify is their eighth studio album and it doesn’t disappoint. Pre-pandemic, Lettuce were constantly on the road but after the touring was halted the band were, explained drummer Adam Deitch, “Dealing with the pandemic, being in separate places, trying to survive without our best friends, without touring, not to mention the political divide in this country… We really needed to unify.” Lettuce are now well into their 50 date world tour and will be in the UK for an appearance at London’s Scala Theatre on 20 September.
As often on Cosmic Jazz, we changed the tone with a Brazilian sequence. Singer/songwriter Sabrina Malheiros – daughter of the Azymuth bass player Alex Malheiros – produces cool but joyful samba/ jazz influenced music, and her record Clareia (released on 
Friends from Rio is a project begun by Far Out label founder Joe Davis to bring together many of their artists in a project originally aimed at the dance floors of London. Started in 1994, Friends from Rio releases continued to appear on the label – the last one emerging in 2014. Cravo e Canela was written by another Brazilian musical heavyweight, the great Milton Nascimento and has been recorded by many musicians over the years. It first appeared on one of Neil’s all-time favourite records – Nascimento’s superb collaboration with Lô Borges called Clube da Esquina – listen to that version 
Realce is one of Gilberto Gil’s most disco-influenced albums and is very much a document of the end of military dictatorship in Brazil. Released in 1979, the aforementioned Dorival Caymmi features on one track (
And so began a short set of John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders tunes and influences, selected by Neil in Singapore beginning with pianist, composer and live remixer Mark de Clive-Lowe who’s back with a 2LP/CD set featuring the music of Pharoah Sanders. As with previous records, this one was recorded live at 
This rare live recording captures Sanders in Paris with I Want to Talk About You, one of Coltrane’s most beautiful ballads. Neil was reminded of this tune when he heard it performed live by the Ravi Campbell Trio in 
This take on a Coltrane classic comes from saxophonist Sean Khan’s tribute, issued last year on BBE Records. Intriguingly, there are three parts to the album: The Future Present mostly comprises material written by or closely associated with Coltrane, reimagined by a plugged in, medium-sized, with-strings-and-harp ensemble that includes takes on Acknowledgement and Afro Blue; The Past has versions of Coltrane standards – including Equinox and Impressions; and finally there’s The Future Past with two remixes of Khan originals by broken-beat pioneer Kaidi Tatham. Our choice of Afro Blue features some fine soprano sax from Sean Khan and a vocal by the Cinematic orchestra’s Heidi Vogel. “I made a conscious effort to represent all of Coltrane’s main artistic periods,” says Khan of the album. “From hard bop, to sheets of sound, to spiritual jazz and finally his last, most experimental and cosmic period. I have never heard a record that attempts to reflect all of the great man’s epochs in this way and use the recording artist’s autobiography, my own, as a conduit to these ends. So here I am, for better, for worse.” It’s a noble project and is a Cosmic Jazz recommendation.
UK saxophonist Nat Birchall is a long-time advocate of the music and sound of John Coltrane and here he’s taken a tune from pianist Billy Gault – another jazz musician who should be better known – check out another of his great modal compositions 
Back in the UK in June, Neil couldn’t help but buy the newly issued 2LP mono and stereo version of Coltrane’s classic My Favorite Things record from 1961. The back story is that in March 1960 while on tour in Europe, Miles Davis bought a soprano saxophone for Coltrane – an instrument used in the early days of jazz but (with the exception of Steve Lacy) somewhat rare in the 1950s and 60s. Coltrane was intrigued, and he began to play it in performance. In the summer of 1960 he put together what would be the first version of his classic Quartet with McCoy Tyner on piano, Steve Davis on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. It was this group that would feature on My Favorite Things. According to Lewis Porter’s biography, Coltrane described the album is “my favorite piece of all those I have recorded”.
We last featured vocalist Janet Lawson in February 2021 following her death earlier in the year. A singer who used her voice as another instrument, Lawson collaborated with many jazz luminaries over the years, including Chick Corea, Ron Carter, Cedar Walton, Duke Pearson and Eddie Jefferson and many others. Most of her work was in New York clubs and from 1968-69 was a regular guest on Steve Allen’s New York TV show. Lawson was also involved in improvisational acting, teaching master classes in vocal improvisation and was a founder member of Women In Music, a group of six musicians. So High was a staple at the legendary Sunday afternoon sessions at Dingwalls in London. You can still download her 1981 debut 
Here on Cosmic Jazz we both like to return and replay music that we love. This debut concept album was released in 1997 and featured guest appearances from George Benson, Roy Ayers, Tito Puente, the Salsoul Orchestra and – on the celebrated cover of the Rotary Connection classic I Am the Black Gold of the Sun – US vocalist Joscelyn Brown. The brainchild of the Masters at Work pairing of Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez and ‘Little’ Louie Vega, Nuyorican Soul was a celebration of their jazzier, old-school latin influences – and it totally works. With a collection of well-chosen covers and sympathetically written new material all interpreted by some old school guests the album is a Nuyorican (New York/Puerto Rican) masterpiece that seamlessly brings together club and street into a mix that still sounds good twenty years down the line. The album includes takes on Bob James’ Nautilus (bracketed here as MAWtilus), the Salsoul Orchestra’s Runaway and the superb original It’s Alright, I Feel It! – easily the equal to some of those classics. The album closer, George Benson’s You Can Do It (Baby) is unforgettable – listen to the full 15 minute version 
Everyone will know this tune – written and performed by Bill Withers and available on his debut album Just As I Am from 1972. In this original version the sentiments of the lyrics and the way Withers delivers it conveys messages of sadness and regret. But when the same tune is sung by Severino Dias de Oliveira (aka Sivuca) it becomes a joyous, hip-swinging, mood-changing event that brings forth the sunshine, rather than denying it. This is my favourite version of the song. For the first time, the album where you can find this version – the eponymous Sivuca – will be re-released in vinyl on 26 February 2021 by our friends at 
This is another record we are catching up on again. We actually first played tracks from this album back in 2015 but have begun to appreciate its qualities once more and have featured several tracks in recent shows. Pianist Domink Wania is joined by Max Mucha on double bass and Dawid Fortuna on drums. Wania is an outstanding pianist and this debut album was much anticipated. It remains his only solo album but there is a long list of Polish jazz musicians on whose records he has appeared and made a major contribution, including Tomasz Stanko – one of the Polish greats. He’s also played with jazz artists from further afield, including Americans Marcus Miller, Dave Liebman, Lee Konitz, Don Byron and Eddie Henderson. He is also an educator in Krakow and Katowice and released his first solo piano album, Lonely Shadows, in November 2020. Check out this video of the track 
More Polish music from our friends at the excellent 
Also at Steve’s Jazz Sounds you’ll find an album whose title Heal the World sounds like an anthem for our times, even though it was recorded in 2017. It’s from the Swedish Open Trio, led by pianist Joakim Simonsson with Daniel Olsson on drums and Par-Ola Landin on bass. We have come across the words ‘Polish melancholy’ to describe much Polish jazz but – not to be outdone – the Open Trio have been described as ‘Nordic melancholy’ – I’d rather describe them as lyrical and melodic… The jazz piano trio has been a staple format since the 1950s and – for more Scandi-jazz trio music – the wonderful EST (or, more accurately, e.s.t) should not be ignored. Esbjörn Svensson led the trio until his untimely death in a scuba diving accident in 2008 and the excellent Live in Gothenburg was released last year. Here’s the official video of the superb 
We love latin music here at CJ and we recognise the many connections between all its many variants and the world of jazz. To mark this, we’re starting something new as a regular feature in the show. The Latin Quarter will provide a dose of latin music as an integral part of the show. We start with Jack deJohnette, usually known as a drummer but also a pianist on this album. He featured in last week’s show as part of Keith Jarrett’s trio but this week the music comes from his own Sound Travels album, recorded in 2011 and which we played on the show at that time. Scanning his music collection, Derek came across the record again and wanted to play a track. It is a superb album with a stellar line-up including Esperanza Spalding on vocals and acoustic bass, Lionel Loueke on electric guitar and Ambrose Akinmusire on trumpet. Salsa for Luisito is dedicated to the captivating percussion player on the album – Luisito Quintero. The Caracas-born player has played on over fifty records to date including those of Fania stars Willie Colon, Eddie Palmieri and Tito Puente. His jazz links are many and various – George Benson, Herbie Hancock, and Ravi Coltrane to name a few. More recently, he has been an integral part of Louie Vega’s Elements of Life group (see more below).
