B. Walter

Saxophonist and composer Walter Smith III enters a new era of his band leading career with his remarkable Blue Note debut return to casual, the long-anticipated follow-up to his self-released 2014 recording still casual. Eight original works (and one new arrangement) all composed within weeks of each other layer, displace, dismantle and reassemble among the Houston native’s fellow artists. Reprising their bandmate roles, pianist Taylor Eigsti, guitarist Matt Stevens, bassist Harish Raghavan, and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire reveal a seasoned depth of dimension alongside a featured guest appearance by pianist James Francies.

In 1998 an article appeared in The Times claiming the non-existence of talent. Just as the eminent psychologist R.D. Laing explained that ‘schizophrenia’ was a fabricated term for an analysable condition, so the Times writer stressed that talent was a fancy description for hard work. For him the success of a musical star – he took the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter as his example – had more to do with perspiration than inspiration.

In 1998 an article appeared in The Times claiming the non-existence of talent. Just as the eminent psychologist R.D. Laing explained that ‘schizophrenia’ was a fabricated term for an analysable condition, so the Times writer stressed that talent was a fancy description for hard work. For him the success of a musical star – he took the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter as his example – had more to do with perspiration than inspiration.

Look no further than the title to summarize this New Orleans veteran's music on his first studio set in nearly a decade. Bookending the album with the two-part "Shake Your Booty/Funky Thing" ensures that the proceedings start and end with the rump-shaking, horn-propelled R&B that, along with jazz, soul, and blues, makes Walter "Wolfman" Washington's music so much a part of his Crescent City home. He's never been particularly prolific, but after the long span between releases - partially due to the effects and aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina - the Wolf sounds electrified and inspired here. The second track, "I'm Back," tells that story against an urgent groove that keeps the party atmosphere while recounting the hurricane's devastation and his attempts to get the city and its people to return to a place that will never be the same…

Walter Wanderley's debut album 'O Samba É Mais Samba' was released in Argentina as 'El Samba Es Mas Samba Con Walter Wanderley', the North American market named this LP as 'Walter Wanderley's Brazilian Organ', and a second release in US made it as 'From Rio With Love'. Wanderley was known for his distinctive staccato stuttering style and mastery of the Hammond B-3 organ and on later recordings and during live concerts a L Series Hammond. Walter Wanderley was already famous in his native country Brazil in the late 1950s and became an internationally renowned star in the mid-1960s through his collaboration with the singer Astrud Gilberto.

'I have composed this Adagio for string quintet at the request of my friend Walter Grimmer; it should be played in concert before the great string quintet in C by Schubert. What a story! What kind of hillock have I created next to the Himalaya of chamber music? Well, I have written a type of music with which I have striven to stay true to my own self. And yet the piece begins with Schuberts closing trills for the two cellos and repeatedly a C major chord pops up, mostly delicately, but just once entirely explicitly. And as a reference to the Adagio from the great Austrian, Ive given the second cello some repeated pizzicati to play. And as a gift for my friend who gave me this commission: a short cadenza from the second cello, followed by a coda in which both violins repeat the opening pizzicati two octaves higher. And the piece ends with a long deep C note, which should serve to introduce the beginning of the Schubert. And now you enter into a totally different dimension…'