The all-star house band of the SFJAZZ Center convenes each year to perform new arrangements of a seminal jazz composer’s tunes (and play original works written and arranged by its octet of members). Previous artists have included Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane.
Last season the band, known at the SFJAZZ Collective, took on perhaps the best-known jazz musician of all time, Miles Davis, and last week it released “The Music of Miles Davis & Original Compositions,” a limited-edition two-CD set recorded during a four-night residency at the center.
One CD focuses on original compositions; the other on new versions of tunes such as “So What,” “Tutu,” “All Blues,” “Nardis” and “Bitches Brew.” The performances here are as sharp and inventive as any of the first-rate music the collective has recorded over its previous 15 albums.
$30 for the two-CD set, available at www.sfjazz.org
Marcus Crowder
Comments