Smooth Jazz Therapy

Michael Lington - On The Scene

It might only be the last day of February but for sax-man Michael Lington 2025 is already panning out to be quite a year. Take for example the release of his latest EP, ‘On The Scene’, a tight five-track collection that follows in the footsteps of his 2023 outing ‘Looking Ahead’.

Paradoxically, glancing back to the ‘Looking Ahead’ project, it marked Lington’s first collaboration with fellow saxophonist David Mann and now Mann is back to co-produce the album’s only cover, Lington’s cool take on the late David Sanborn track ‘Goodbye’ that can be found on Sanborn’s 1988 long player ‘Close Up’. It is this whole David Sanborn vibe that Lington and Mann strive to recreate with the party-ready title cut that proves to be funkified, fiery, and wonderfully brass enriched while elsewhere the zesty ‘Dreamy Night’ is a number that grows in intensity as the piece goes on.

Co-written, mixed, produced by two-time GRAMMY^®-winning producer Paul Brown it includes input on guitars, bass, keys and drum programming from Shane Theriot who, in another life, is a longtime member of Daryl Hall’s band.

This same combination is also around for the deliciously easy grooving ‘Hold Me Tight’ and Paul Brown again comes up trumps with the brass enriched ‘Just Saying’ that is arguably right up there with the best that ‘On The Scene’ has to offer.

‘On The Scene’ is Lington’s fourteenth album. It hit the streets February 28 on the Copenhagen Music label and, over a recording career that has seen him chart in excess of twenty-five hit singles, he has performed in over forty countries. In 2025 he has already appeared at the Jam For LA benefit concert for fire disaster relief and will also be taking his Sax To Soul show back to Spaghettini in Seal Beach, CA. In June he will be all at sea with back-to-back sailings of the Dave Koz & Friends smooth jazz cruise while in September and October he can variously be found in Amsterdam and London where he will be playing the legendary Pizza Express jazz club.

Ultrablue - New York Stories

Keyboard player, composer, and producer John Smatla records under the name of Ultrablue. On March 21 he will release the six-song EP ‘New York Stories’ a sumptuous slice of top-notch contemporary jazz that featuring some of the most talented artists the genre has to offer.

Take for example the opening track; the retro tinged ‘New York Story’ that features David Mann on sax and cool backing vocals from the group New York Voices. Or then again Smatla’s homage to Herbie Hancock, ‘Herbie’, where Hancock’s drummer Trevor Lawrence makes a guest appearance and is joined by Euge Groove’s regular bass player Cornelius Mims, The Chop Horns, and Eric Knight on sax.

Brian Simpson - Under The Stars

‘Midnight Groove’ from keyboard player Brian Simpson will be his twelfth studio album and ahead of its release comes the hot new radio single ‘Under The Stars’ which even at this early stage seems destined to be one of the contemporary jazz tracks of the year.

This rhythmic gem is everything you would expect from an artist who enjoys status that might best be described as smooth jazz royalty. Not only that, the supporting musicians he routinely enlists for all his projects is a glowing tribute to the regard in which he is universally held.

‘Under The Stars’ is a case in point with Isaiah Collier on sax, Ray Fuller on guitars, ‘go to’ bass player Alex Al, drummer to the stars Michael White, the ubiquitous Ramon Yslas on percussion and Yarone Levy on acoustic guitar.

This is a track that is destined to be right up there in my Smooth Jazz Therapy Top Twenty of 2025.

 

Peter White - Light Of Day

Out now on Lobster Music Inc is the latest (and 17^th in all) CD from smooth jazz superstar Peter White. Titled ‘Light Of Day’ it is White’s first new recording in six years and coincides with his 50^th anniversary as a professional musician and 35 years since the release of his debut album, ‘Réveillez-vous’.

Kirk Whalum - Epic Cool

Out now on the Mack Avenue label is the appropriately titled ‘Epic Cool’ from legendary sax-man Kirk Whalum. It is a fine collection of sophisticated smooth jazz that owes much to the input of producer and Grammy nominee Greg Manning and the song writing prowess of Whalum as together they take the listener on a journey that is signposted by passion, spirit and soul.

Take for example the sultry ‘Pillow Talk’ that Whalum describes as the strongest song he has written in the last twenty years, the equally mellow ‘Love & Healing’ or the eminently danceable ‘Bah-De-Yah’. Talking of danceable ‘You & Sunday Morning’ will get feet tapping in a mid tempo kind of a way while ‘Crusaderation’ is Whalum’s tip of the hat to the Crusaders, the supergroup that did much to shape what eventually came to be known as smooth jazz.

 

Steve Cole - Without A Doubt

A little over a year ago smooth jazz ‘A-Lister’ Steve Cole released his latest high-octane blockbuster ‘Without A Doubt’. Out on the Mack Avenue label it marked the culmination of Cole’s partnership with rising smooth jazz star Adam Hawley as together they delivered an avalanche of high energy tracks that would not have been out of place in the genre’s golden age of times gone by.

Take for example ‘One Two!’ the storming title cut or the just as good ‘Its Like That’. Then again, what about when Steve turns down the tempo and comes up with the sultry ‘Dreaming Of You’?

 

Spotlight On - Yuko Mabuchi

Hailing from Japan and now well established on the Los Angeles music scene, pianist Yuko Mabuchi has just released the outstanding single ‘Ethereal’.

Although classically trained, Yuko’s appreciation of music extends to R & B, hip-hop, blues and most notably jazz where a point of reference would be Keiko Matsui. In 2010 she relocated to Los Angeles and for the past eight years has been volunteering as an accompanist for the Watts- Willowbrook Youth Orchestra, an act that has led to a commendation from the city she now calls home for her dedication in nurturing the next generation of musicians.

Yuko’s discography now extends to six albums, the first two of which were recorded when she was still a student. These projects directly led to her collaboration with Yarlung Records, a label known for its classical repertoire.

As well as her blossoming recording career Yuko has performed in venues that include the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, the Richmond Jazz Festival, Detroit Institute of the Arts, the Atlanta Jazz Festival and Monterey Jazz Festival.