On March 1 at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC), Frank Leto will present “Carnaval 2025: Veinte Años,” his 20th almost-annual celebration of Carnaval at the NHCC. This year’s performance, which, as usual, features Frank’s vibrant original music and the Odara Dance Ensemble’s energized choreography and lavish costumes, is dedicated to his late wife, the inimitable dancer and life force Pilar Leto, who unexpectedly passed away February 11, 2024.
Music, like love, has the capacity for altering your consciousness, your brain chemistry. These two releases—River of Eden, from Yosef Gutman and Peter Broderick, and The Berklee Sessions, from Scanner and Neil Leonard, each of which got past me in 2024, have the capacity to do just that, and they do it in completely different fashions, acoustically and electronically, respectively.
My long winter’s nap was blessedly interrupted by the new release from The Fury, Live in Brooklyn. This quartet, comprising heavyweights Mark Turner (tenor sax), Lage Lund (guitar), Matt Brewer (bass), and Tyshawn Sorey (drums), offers up next-level jazz that produces continual astonishment.
With Prayer for What Remains, her first release since 2019, pianist Leslie Pintchik once again, with the assistance of her deeply connected bandmates, delivers engaging music notable as much for its intelligence as its emotional eloquence and scope.
Old friends Edward Simon, Scott Colley, and Brian Blade have reformed their trio for Three Visitors, their lyrical new jazz album, and a new friend, French-Dominican-Canadian pianist Thélonius García, offers an often captivating solo recording, Marche Nocturne, in more of a classical outing.
