Spiritual Jazz Vol. 6

When Analog Africa founder Samy Ben Redjeb arrived in Mogadishu in November of 2016, he was informed by his host that he would have to be accompanied at all times by an armed escort while in the country. The next morning, a neighbour and former security guard put on a military uniform, borrowed an AK-47 from somewhere and escorted him to Via Roma, an historical street in the heart of Hamar-Weyne, the city's oldest district. Although previous Analog Africa releases have demonstrated a willingness to go more than the extra air-mile to track down the stories behind the music, the trip to Mogadishu was a musical journey of a different kind. It was the culmination of an odyssey that had started many years earlier.

There has not been a more important or influential body of cello music written before or since the 6 Bach Cello Suites. Now treated almost reverentially by cellists, for two hundred years they were virtually unknown until a young Catalan cellist, Pablo Casals, discovered them in a little shop and breathed life back into these masterpieces. For some the music is deeply spiritual, for others the pieces are closely connected with nature… or perhaps it is the ingenuity of their structure and symmetry that inspires people to be moved by the Cello Suites. Whatever the reasons, people always come back to Bach.

Gregory Groover's Criss Cross debut, recorded on the Boston born-and-bred tenor saxophonist's thirtieth birthday, is a tour de force. Joined by a bespoke sextet of his favorite players, all New York-based, Groover presents a recital of 11 original tone-parallels to family and friends, his intentions anticipated, illuminated and fulfilled by his gifted bandmates.