Jake T Mills Pentest

One of the most striking and strangely moving moments onJake Xerxes Fussell’s gorgeous Good and Green Again—an album, his fourth and most recent, replete with such dazzling moments—arrives at its very end, with the brief words to the final song “Washing-ton.” “General Washington/Noblest of men/His house, his horse, his cherry tree, and him,” Fussell sings, after a hushed introductory passage in which his trademark percussively fingerpicked Telecaster converses lacily with James Elkington’s parlor piano. That’s the entire lyrical content of the song, which proceeds to float away on orchestral clouds of French horn, trumpet, and strings, until it simply stops, suddenly evaporating, vanishing with no fade or trace, no resolution to its sorrowful minor-key chord progression, just silence and stillness and stark presidential absence. It feels like the end of a film, or the cold departure of a ghost, and is unlike anything else Jake has recorded.

This three-disc compilation features many of the Mills Brothers' best tracks. Although Golden Greats does not cover the vocal group's whole career, it still competes well with the definitive Mills Brothers: The Anthology (1931-1968) and perhaps represents them better.

The very first release by the Concord label was a quartet set featuring guitarists Herb Ellis and Joe Pass, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Jake Hanna. Ellis and Pass (the latter was just beginning to be discovered) always made for a perfectly complementary team, constantly challenging each other. The boppish music (which mixes together standards with "originals" based on the blues and a standard) is quite enjoyable with the more memorable tunes including "Look for the Silver Lining," "Honeysuckle Rose," "Georgia," "Good News Blues," and "Bad News Blues." This was a strong start for what would become the definitive mainstream jazz label.

After decades of lending clutch support to everyone from D’Angelo to The Who, ace session bassist Pino Palladino makes his long-awaited debut on Notes With Attachments. The main attachment, enough to share cover billing, is Grammy-winning producer and multi-instrumentalist Blake Mills, who encountered Palladino and drummer Chris Dave (also of D’Angelo’s orbit) while working on John Legend’s 2016 album Darkness and Light. Collaborative seeds were sown, and the result is this highly inventive program of instrumentals, steeped in abstract hip-hop beats, leftfield sonics, clustery jazz harmony, and subtle compositional detailing.

The fourth of the European Classics label's five CDs containing the complete output of the Mills Blue Rhythm Band captures the underrated orchestra at the peak of their powers. Formerly a no-name outfit, trumpeter Henry "Red" Allen, trombonist J.C. Higginbotham, clarinetist Buster Bailey, and tenor saxophonist Joe Garland were the group's star soloists by this time. In addition, by the last eight numbers on this highly recommended program, altoist Tab Smith was also part of the band. The CD starts off with three numbers on which singer Chuck Richards is backed by a sextet including Allen, Bailey, and trombonist Benny Morton. Otherwise the program features the full orchestra (directed by Lucky Millinder by this time)…