Somehow it’s already eleven days into March, so this post is coming a bit late to truly count as a February rotation note. It’s been a bit hectic, so I’ve been sitting on this write up for a bit too long. But good music doesn’t age, so it’s all the same to me. This month has been decidedly jazzy, and I don’t see things shifting too far away from this for the next few weeks, since I’ve got tickets to see Snarky Puppy (and on my birthday, no less!!).

Freddie Hubbard – Live.. The CTI Years 1970 – 1973

This one was a random choice on Spotify, really. I wanted to listen to a Freddie album I haven’t heard before, and I landed on this live one. Frustratingly, I can’t find too much info about the line up, only what discogs has to say, which I’m not sure is super reliable. The standout, for me, is the incredible, almost 20 minutes long rendition of Red Clay. It’s massively different from the recording on the eponymous album, so much more free and meandering. I could (and have) listened just to that on repeat for a little while.

Frank Sinatra – Live at the Sands

Sinatra’s album at the Sands is Frank at his best. But it’s notable not just for old blue eyes’s husky voice, but also for the entire group working on this. Frank is accompanied by the Count Basie Orchestra – they could make any slouch sound good, and with someone as accomplished as Sinatra they shine. The arrangements are done by Quincy Jones – one of the very few people who are famous and wealthy because of how genuinely talented they are. Every song is a delight on this. But the thing that is most memorable, and which I keep talking to people about, is the deeply unfunny standup routine Frank does in the middle of this album to an audience that is absolutely eating it up (it’s a casino, I guess they’re all blasted on cheap whisky). It’s so unfunny it becomes funny all over again. Just an incredible album.

George Benson – Giblet Gravy

Pat Metheny once said that the world would be a much better place if George Benson just put out an instrumental album once a year. The world is also a much better place if you listen to a different George Benson album every month. But early Benson is where it’s at. Giblet Gravy is his fourth album, and he’s already showing the signs of his future move into somewhat more pop territory. But maybe because these are only signs that this album is so wonderful. There’s a sense of pure joy that you can hear in his playing, that honestly, is always there. But at this point it’s all shown through the spicy blues licks peppering the solos, the lightnight fast passages, the sense that he’s looking at his hands with some amusement at what he’s capable of (you see him do this exact move at the end of his solo on Take Five from the Live in Montreaux album, it’s like he’s saying to his band mates “Yeah, I don’t know where that came from either”). Love him.

To conclude, a few things I’m chuffed to hear soon:

• A new Kamasi Washington album is coming out in May
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are also going to have a new album out this year