-The Metropolitan Jazz Octet and singer extraordinaire Dee Alexander joined forces and talent for “Too Hot For Words”, a celebration of Billie Holiday and her songbook also featuring Chicago’s own Jim Gailloreto on tenor saxophone.
-The Fat Babies, Chicago’s preeminent traditional jazz ensemble, climbs to new heights in this record for Delmark: “Uptown”. Inspired by the style of the famous Black big bands of the 20’s and early 30’s, “The Fat Babies” bring back to life the traditions of hot jazz and hot dance music in a way which is both historically respectful and very much alive.
-Javier Red is one of the rising pianists and composers within the fertile Chicago jazz scene. Together with the members of his quartet, appropriately called Imagery Converter, Javier Red presents a well-balanced combination of tightly structured pieces with amazing skills for collective and individual improvisation within very complex forms.
