Bernard Edwards – Glad To Be Here

Not standard piano trio, this group features unique percussion with lyrical bass and piano arrangements of originals and standards. Pianist Leslie Pintchik and bassist Scott Hardy have a musical partnership that spans two decades, and together they have built a library of rich original material. On So Glad to Be Here, Leslie and Scott are joined by percussionist Satoshi Takeishi, whose highly unusual kit (which includes hand drums, bells, cymbals, etc.) adds a dramatic array of colors to the music. The Music-Warmth, humor and mystery flavor this mix of original compositions and jazz standards, in a recording that features rich group interplay and lean textures.

Inclusivity is at the heart of Barrie, the Brooklyn five-piece made of Barrie Lindsay, Dominic Apa, Spurge Carter, Sabine Holler and Noah Prebish. And on their debut LP Happy To Be Here, their multidimensional take on classic pop sounds awake and present, like a group that's daydreaming but firmly there with one another. Barrie, the band, is primarily her project; on the record, which she co-produced with Jake Aron (Snail Mail, Solange, Grizzly Bear), Lindsay plays guitar, piano, synth and bass. But still, Barrie is distinctly not a solo project, and Happy To Be Here-out May 3, 2019 via Winspear-is very much a full band record. Happy To Be Here offers snapshots of the band coming together in the city, after having lived all over: Boston, Baltimore, upstate New York, London, São Paulo via Berlin. "The scaffolding of this album is moving to New York and finding these people that make up the band, " Barrie says. "We're very different, but we cover each other's gaps personally and creatively, and are eager to learn from each other."

Born and bred New Yorkers carrying the torch of the family business, BAILEN are a trio of deeply musical siblings whose harmony-rich sound combines the warm '70s luster of Fleetwood Mac and Crosby, Stills & Nash with the earnest dynamic tone of contemporary indie folk. The progeny of professional classical musicians, fraternal twins David (drums) and Daniel (bass) and their younger sister Julia Bailen (guitar) comprise a band whose near-telepathic unity and innate musical instincts have been refined in one form or another since childhood. Being slightly older, the twins cycled through their own collection of adolescent bands together – most notably gigging as the Bailen Brothers – before Julia's path intersected with her brothers and they coalesced in 2013 as BAILEN.