Smooth Jazz Therapy

Kayla Waters - Murky Moon

Taken from her 2023 CD ‘Presence’ the latest single from keyboard player Kayla Waters is the excellent ‘Murky Moon’. It is a song that that oozes sophistication and which follows both ‘Waterkisses’ and ‘Undulation’ as worthy examples of what this choice collection is all about. Not only that it confirms her place very much on he quality end of the smooth jazz spectrum.

Classically trained at Howard University from where she graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance Kaya Waters is very much the real musical deal.

 

Curtis Haywood - Last Dance

Featuring guitarist Steve Oliver, ‘Last Dance’ is the latest single from smooth jazz sax-man Curtis Haywood. Lusciously mid tempo, it is a track that builds on the success of his 2018 album ‘Summer Breeze’ and the hit single ‘City Lights’ that arrived four years later.

Nice track

 

Andrew Neu - Living Your Best Life

‘Living Your Best Life’ is the latest single from saxophonist, woodwind player, arranger, composer and educator Andrew Neu. Neu wrote this up beat charmer with rising star Greg Manning who also produced and mixed the track.

Neu’s CV is impeccable. Not only has he toured the world with contemporary jazz heavyweights Bobby Caldwell, Diane Schuur, Norman Brown and Smokey Robinson, Neu has also shared the stage with Elton John, Patti Labelle, Mellissa Manchester, The Four Tops, and The Temptations among others. He has recorded with Sister Sledge, Manhattan Transfer, David Sanborn, Gerald Veasley, Jeff Lorber, Brian Bromberg, Rick Braun, Brian Culbertson, Chuck Loeb, Paul Brown and Buddy DeFranco. While elsewhere he was a featured soloist on Peter White’s ‘Here We Go’ and also composed the horn arrangement for Brian Bromberg’s chartbusting ‘Coupe De Ville’.

 

Bob Baldwin - Complicit

I have been in love with the music of Bob Baldwin since 2002 and the release of the stunning ‘Standing Tall’. A lot, and I mean a lot has happened over the intervening years not least of which being the release of his latest album ‘It’s OK To Dream’. It has received GRAMMY® consideration for the track ‘Malema’ in the category Best African Music Performance and ‘Cape Town at Night’ in the category Best Global Music Performance.

The latest single to be lifted from ‘It’s OK To Dream’ is the sumptuous ‘Complicit’, another number that indulges Baldwin’s passion for Brazilian music. It is classic Bob Baldwin and then some.

 

Chris Big Dog Davis - Brighter

Grammy nominated writer and producer Chris ‘Big Dog’ Davis finally got round to releasing his own album, ‘Focus’, in 2020. It turned out to be well worth the wait with sumptuous tracks such as ‘Its All Love’ and collaborations with smooth jazz heavyweights Gerald Albright, Kim Waters, Ace Livingston, Maysa, Marty Q, the late great Nick Colionne and trumpeter Rick Braun. ‘Focus’ proved to be one of the contemporary jazz events of the year and now he is back with ‘After The Storm’, a tight thirteen-track collection that has already garnered the single ‘Low Down’. Next up for the airwaves is the extremely in the pocket ‘Brighter’ that features Lin Rountree on trumpet.

Lovely track

 

TNR Collective - Hypnotized

Earlier in 2024, Trippin N Rhythm recording artists Ryan La Valette, Lemek, Nicholas Cole and Catie Water, in the guise of TNR Collective, released the haunting single ‘Hypnotized’. It was a fine example of what might best be described as quiet storm smooth jazz and now, buoyed by the success of this choice tune, the collective, joined this time by sax-man Randy Scott and English guitarist Mark Jaimes, are all se to release the follow up ‘Sunkissed’.

Check back here soon for more on ‘Sunkissed’ from the TNR Collective.

 

Jackiem Joyner - Lokichogio

Brand new from soprano sax player Jackiem Joyner comes the excellent single ‘Lokichogio’. With its unique blend of afrobeats and jazz the track was inspired by the time Joyner spent in Kenya and Southern Sudan.

 

Boney James - Slide

‘Slow Burn’ by sax-man Boney James will be released October 18 on the Concord label. It will be James’ nineteenth studio album and the latest single to be lifted from it is the tight, in the groove, ‘Slide’. It is the third single to be taken from it and follows ‘All I Want Is You’ and ‘Butterfly’,

No doubt about it, ‘Slow Burn’ has all the makings of the contemporary jazz event of 2024.

 

Marion Meadows - AI Moonrise

Taken from his forthcoming album ‘Just Doing Me’ that will be released October 25 on the Shanachie Entertainment label, ‘AI Moonrise’ is the sort of smoothed out number that we have come to expect from sax-man Marion Meadows. Indeed three decades and seventeen albums into what has developed into a stellar career Meadows has never sounded better.  With the exception of one carefully crafted cover Meadows wrote and recorded ‘Just Doing Me’ over a two year period with contributions from musicians and producers such as Chris “Big Dog” Davis, Rahni Song, Wirlie Morris, and Paul Brown, among others.

Check back here soon for a complete review of ‘Just Doing Me’.

 

Norman Brown - Strollin

The latest album from smooth jazz innovator Norman Brown is the sensational ‘It Hits Different’ that was released March 29 on the Shanachie Entertainment label

‘It Hits Different’ has already spawned radio singles such as ‘Anything’ (where Brown returns to the tight, in the pocket, contemporary jazz with which he made his name) and the title cut that features vocalist Wirlie Morris and which, plain and simple, is an outrageously delicious slice of urban jazz.

The latest track to be serviced to radio is the jazzy ‘Strollin’, an ultra cool collaboration with keyboard player Tom Schuman.

Schuman can rightly be described as contemporary jazz royalty having been an integral member of Spyro Gyra since age sixteen and even before the band’s first release. Starting from ‘Catch The Sun’ in 1980 and up until 2022 (when left the line-up to relocate to Europe) he has performed on all of Spyro Gyra's albums and has written or co-written over sixty Spyro Gyra compositions.

 

Nathan Mitchell - So In Love With You

‘Gentle And Smooth’ by name and ‘Gentle And Smooth’ by nature this tight ten-track collection from keyboard player Nathan Mitchell is out now on Trippin ‘N’ Rhythm Records. The latest single from it, ‘So In Love With You’, features jazz violinist Chelsey Green and is everything fans of mellow smooth jazz could ever want. The previous single, the brass enriched up-tempo ‘Just Coolin’, featured Ryan La Valette and was further evidence that with ‘Gentle And Smooth’ Mitchell has come up with a real gem.

Nathan’s musical journey began in 2012 with the single ‘For All Eternity’ and from that time, and up to 2017, he played with some of the genre’s most elite artists. Since 2018, and the release of his debut album ‘Smooth Groove’, his output has been prolific. ‘Soulmate’ hit the streets in 2019; ‘Love Languages’ arrived two years later while ‘It’s My Time’ was released in 2022.

 

Nick Stone - Standing Strong

Over recent years producer and keyboard player Nate Harasim had received repeated calls from fellow Detroit based musician Nick Stone to work with him. Only problem was Harisim, who before the age of forty, had retired from the music business.

In the end Harasim could ignore the overtures of Stone no longer. It brought him back to the recording studio, to write and to produce for a project that in the medium term is expected to evolve into a debut solo album for Stone and in the shorter term Stone’s hot new single ‘Standing Strong’.

Sax and EWI player Stone has credentials as a top-notch touring musician being part of singer Ne-Yo’s entourage from2009 to 2011 and with R&B legend Charlie Wilson from 2012 to 2017.

 

Cindy Bradley - A Little Moxie

Back in 2023, and in preparation for the album ‘Promise’, Trippin n Rhythm treated fans of trumpeter Cindy Bradley to back to back radio singles, the rhythmically intoxicating ‘For The Cool In You’ and the high octane ‘Drive’.

Later the label also issued the title track as a single but so as to define ‘Promise’ as the gift that keeps on giving, latest track from it to hit the airwaves is ‘A Little Moxie’ that starts out in mellow mood, then luxuriates in a brassy veneer before cutting loose as a real foot tapper.

‘Promise’ has proved to be a worthy successor to her 2019 project ‘The Little Things’ that delivered the sophisticated ‘Wind Chill Factor’ plus the wonderfully mellifluous ‘Stockholm Summer’.

 

BPM - Seriously

It seems like only five minutes since I was welcoming The 3 Keys as the latest contemporary jazz ‘super group’. Typically constructed around a coming together of established and talented solo artists, this subgenre has created the likes of ‘Sax Pack’, (Steve Cole – Kim Waters – Jeff Kashawa), ‘Jazz Funk Soul’ (Jeff Lorber – Everette Harp – Paul Jackson Jr) and even ‘Fourplay (Bob James – Nathan East – Harvey Mason – Lee Ritenour). Of course in the case of Fourplay, Ritenour gave way first to Larry Carlton and then Chuck Loeb (a founder member of Jazz Funk Soul) who sadly passed away in 2017 but now we have another hot collective on scene, BPM.

BPM is in fact Grammy-nominated and hit-making bassist Brian Bromberg, two-time Grammy- winning guitarist and producer Paul Brown and show-stopping and chart-topping saxophone sensation Michael Paulo. They have joined forces for the first time with the result being the album ‘Seriously’ which will be released on the Shanachie Entertainment September 27. If the title track (and first single) is anything to go they are about to deliver a body of work that will sit very much at the ‘high end’ of smooth jazz.

Check it out.

 

 

Boney James - Butterfly

Currently tickling the musical taste buds ahead of his up coming ‘Slow Burn’ project, Boney James is very much on point with his version of the Herbie Hancock classic ‘Butterfly’.

The track originates from Hancock’s seminal 1974 album ‘Thrust’ and is a perfect example of the brand of jazz-fusion around at the time and which arguably never got old. Hancock’s use of the Fender Rhodes was inspirational while Paul Jackson on bass added just the right amount of funk.

In fact it is not an overstatement to say that ‘Butterfly’ became the bedrock of jazz-fusion of the time and when, two decades later, Hancock revisited the track for his ‘Dis is da Drum’ CD gone was the Fender Rhodes and in its place the key components of 1990s acid jazz.

‘Slow Burn’ will be released October 18 on the Concord label. It will be James’ nineteenth studio album and in addition to ‘All I Want Is You’ and ‘Butterfly’, the album includes an impressive list of guest collaborators including legendary bass player Marcus Miller who lends a hand on both ‘Arcadia’ and ‘Butterfly’. Also around is multi-instrumentalist Jairus Mozee who has worked with the likes of Anderson Paak, Anthony Hamilton and Nikki Minaj.

 

Richard Elliot - Very Delicious

Scottish-born, LA raised and San Diego based, sax man supreme Richard Elliot will release his twenty first album, September 6, 2024, on the Shanachie Entertainment label.

Titled ‘Straight Up Down’ it is a sumptuous nine-track collection replete with Elliot’s signature soulful sound and a case in point is the first single to be serviced to radio, the aptly named ‘Very Delicious’. The song was provided to him by genre heavyweight Jeff Carruthers who also arranges the track and plays guitar. In fact Carruthers is not the only contributor with an undisputed smooth jazz pedigree. Ricky Peterson plays organ, Tracy Carter is on keys, Cornelius Mims provides bass and to top it all off Dan Needham is on drums and renowned percussionist Lenny Castro adds his own kind of magic.

‘Straight Up Down’ is mixed and produced by none other than Euge Groove who shares with Elliot the distinction of being one time members of that legendary horn driven collective Tower Of Power.

 

Euge Groove - Please Mr Groove

Lifted from his 2023 album ‘Comfort Zone’, ‘Please Mr Groove’ from celebrated saxophonist, composer and producer Euge Groove is a song that is loosely based on a cover of a dance club groove from the 80’s by the group One Way. The original featured a Vocoder hook that this time round is picked up and played by Richard Elliot (who incidentally will be back September 9 with his own new long player ‘Straight Up Down’.)

Also, a breakdown section in the song includes a Maceo Parker style sax line which here is replicated by none other than Candy Dulfer who leaps at the chance to pay her own tribute to the music of Parker.

‘Comfort Zone’ is really turning out to be a gift that keeps on giving. As well as ‘Please Mr Groove’ other tracks to hit the airwaves include the title cut (which proves to be the perfect showcase for all that’s good about Euge’s signature sound) and the soulfully rhythmic ‘Junior’ for which Euge goes full on ‘Junior Walker’ and then some.

 

Oli Silk - Grass Fed Funk

Featuring funky sax-man Marcus Anderson, the appropriately titled ‘Grass Fed Funk’ from Smooth Jazz Therapy favourite Oli Silk is the latest radio single from Silk’s current album ‘In Real Life’ that, since its release earlier this year, has been making significant waves.

Given the quality of the music on offer that isn’t surprising with cases in point being the wonderfully ‘in the pocket’ ‘Dare To Dream’, ‘Looking Glass’ (that Oli shares with up and coming vocalist Rebecca Jade) and the moody ‘Actually Actually’ with Kim Scott on flute.

Equally compelling is ‘New Horizons’ for which Ilya Serov adds muted trumpet while maybe best of all is the up tempo ‘A Lil Pick Me Up’ where Carl Cox on sax really blows the doors off.

All in all ‘In Real Life’ is everything we have come to expect from this consummate purveyor of high end contemporary jazz and is as ready radio as can be.