Hard Groove Roy Hargrove

Soul jazz supergroup Something Else!, led by alto sax master Vincent Herring, revisits the vital, funky grooves of an unforgettable era. The all-star band’s groove-driven debut features Jeremy Pelt, Wayne Escoffery, Paul Bollenback, David Kikoski, Essiet Essiet and Otis Brown III.

Damn! marked Jimmy Smith's return to the Verve label after an absence of 20-plus years (he originally recorded for the label from 1963 to 1972), and paired with a group of young and sympathetic jazz players that includes Roy Hargrove and Nicholas Payton on trumpet and Ron Blake and Mark Tuner on sax, he sounds invigorated here, striding across the Hammond B-3 keys with definite energy. The whole album, start to finish, works a wonderful groove, but versions here of James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man," and Charlie Parker's "Scrapple from the Apple" are particularly strong. Smith was arguably at his best in stripped-down trios, and his work for Blue Note between 1956 and 1960 will always be the quality reference point for his extensive canon, but Damn! is right up there with his best work, full of a joyous energy, and it sparked a resurgence of sorts for Smith.

Changing labels from Verve to Warner Bros. and dropping any connection to his neo-bop past, trumpeter Nicholas Payton has crafted a funk-jazz album that unabashedly resurrects iconic trumpeter Miles Davis' wah-wah-laden fusion experiments epitomized by his 1969 opus, Bitches Brew. More slavish to the period than trumpeter Wallace Roney's No Room for Argument, but no less hip-hop-influenced than trumpeter Roy Hargrove's Hard Groove, Sonic Trance is nonetheless far from your average major-label jazz release. Featuring saxophonist Tim Warfield, pianist Kevin Hays, bassist Vicente Archer, drummer Adonis Rose, and percussionist Daniel Sadownick, the group gains much au courant hip-hop aestheticism from the addition of drummer/producer extraordinaire Karriem Riggins…