Brian Wilson Gershwin

18-Song collection spans nearly 30 years, touches on nine of Wilson's solo albums and includes two previously unreleased tracks.

In 1997, bandleader/arranger Gerald Wilson was commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival to write an original piece to be performed at that year's festival. Wilson's goal was to compose a melody that the audience would leave the venue singing to themselves. He succeeded by casting his "Theme for Monterey" in five different styles, with his big band interpreting the theme in a variety of moods – as a ballad, a Latin romp, a medium-tempo piece and a shouting conclusion. His memorable five-part suite has solos by his son, guitarist Anthony Wilson, trumpeter Oscar Brashear, pianist Brian O'Rourke, trombonist George Bohanon, trumpeter Carl Saunders, Randall Willis on tenor, and others. Also on this CD are a couple pieces commissioned by the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Foundation, reworkings of "Summertime" and "Anthropology."

Storied, ten-time Grammy-winning vocal group the Manhattan Transfer are marking their 50th anniversary with the new studio album Fifty, to be released on September 23 digitally, and October 21 on CD, via Craft Recordings. To coincide with the news, the group have announced that they will start their final worldwide tour in America in October, to be followed by an international itinerary. The tour continues back in the US with shows in December, then in January and March 2023.

“Hagar’s Song”, the newest release from long-time ECM luminary Charles Lloyd, is an interactive duo recording with Jason Moran, the pianist who has been a key member of Lloyd’s latter-day quartet, contributing to the albums Rabo de Nube (2008), Mirror (2010) and Athens Concert (2012). The album features pieces especially dear to Lloyd, ranging from compositions by Billy Strayhorn (“Pretty Girl” a/k/a “Star-Crossed Lovers”), Duke Ellington (“Mood Indigo”), George Gershwin (“Bess, You Is My Woman Now”) and Earl Hines (“Rosetta”) to a standard strongly associated with Billie Holiday (“You’ve Changed”), Brian Wilson’s most famous Beach Boys ballad (“God Only Knows”) and a Bob Dylan song definitively interpreted by the Band (“I Shall Be Released”).