Eric Reed – Black, Brown, and Blue (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Eric Reed – Black, Brown, and Blue (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:42 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Smoke Sessions

2023 release. Think of the songwriters whose work comprises the canon of jazz standards, and names like George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter immediately come to mind. On his new album, Black, Brown, and Blue, pianist/composer Eric Reed argues for a revision of that canon to focus on Black and Brown composers, songwriters whose work originates within the jazz realm rather than on the Broadway stage. Black, Brown, and Blue features music written by jazz masters like Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, Benny Golson, Horace Silver, Buddy Collette, and Buster Williams, along with jazz-conversant pop/R&B songwriters Stevie Wonder and Bill Withers. In addition, Reed and his bandmates on this thrilling session – bassist Luca Alemanno and drummer Reggie Quinerly – each contribute a new piece of their own.

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Eric Reed – Groovewise (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Eric Reed – Groovewise (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 58:56 minutes | 690 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Smoke Sessions Records

Eric Reed didn’t want to make a good record, he wanted to make a great one. The celebrated pianist and musician says, I could have called guys who play exactly what I want; it would have been good and not very interesting. It would have been swinging or it would have sounded nice there wouldn t have really been a spark. You don t just want to sound good. You want it to be amazing. And, his Groovewise is that killing record. It features a memorable quartet with Seamus Blake, Ben Williams, and Gregory Hutchinson and is the first recorded meeting of Reed and Hutchinson in over 15 years. They are clearly inspired performing in front of a live audience and the creative energy flies off the bandstand. They open with an impromptu rendition of Powerful Paul Robeson for Clifford Jordan whose wife, Sandy, who was in attendance and they close with the extended title track Groovewise bracketing a thrilling set of live jazz. Several of the compositions are dedicated to the memories of Mulgrew Miller, Cedar Walton, and Marian McPartland and Eric s Until the Last Cat has Swung, is a declaration that jazz remains alive and well in the hands of a new generation. Although Eric might not feel ready to be a keeper of the flame, jazz music is much better off that he already is.

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Eric Reed – For Such a Time as This (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Eric Reed – For Such a Time as This (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:13 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Smoke Sessions

For more than three decades, Eric Reed has been one of the most influential and beloved jazz musicians. He’s recorded close to 30 accomplished leader albums showcasing his virtuosic chops, intellectual clarity and unwavering will to swing. Most remarkable is his ability to refract and coalesce a wide range of musical, spiritual, and personal influences into a single stream of consciousness. This is perhaps the most personal of them all.

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Eric Reed – Everybody Gets the Blues (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Eric Reed – Everybody Gets the Blues (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:35 minutes | 1,11 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Smoke Sessions

The title of Eric Reed’s new album has a double meaning—as in, everybody understands the blues, and everybody feels down from time to time. “Your blues may not be my blues, but everybody gets them,” he writes in the liner notes. True enough, but this album is too joyful for that to be the parting message. After having listened to it, you’ll understand intuitively—if you don’t already—why Eric Reed is one of the most reliably good pianists in the gospel-jazz tradition.

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