New York Ska Jazz Ensemble - Break Thru - Music & Performance - CD

The real kings of contemporary ska-jazz invite you to an exciting cocktail of Jamaican beats and jazz sounds. Brilliant instrumental tracks that will soon be classics and vocal songs showing their exquisite taste and savoir faire. Includes a posthumous musical tribute to the great Tom Petty. New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble's 2019 album Break Thru is the fourteenth studio album from this longstanding New York band from the so-called "third wave" and led by Fred Reiter on sax and vocals. For the task a highflying line-up: Mark Damon (bass and trombone), Kevin Batchelor (trumpet), Joey Gallo (drums), Simone Amodeo (guitar), and Andrea Ferraro (keyboards). As it is usual, sonorities on this new offspring stroll through the sunny crossroad where American Jazz and Jamaican ska meet. Break Thru brilliantly unveils instrumental originals, three cover versions and awesome instrumental technical skill. The more ska-oriented tracks feature the contagious "Chicky Chicky Boom Boom", the raving "Bopicana", and the title track. "Freddie's Bounce" and "Subliminal Seductions" allow the band free rein on jazz-istic abilities and classics on NYSJE repertoire as "Perfidia" and The Wailers' "Love and Affection" find a natural place in the grooves of this new record, as have always done on the bands live sets. A sincere tribute to Tom Petty in the form of a cover of "Learning to Fly" rounds off an album that once again shows the exquisite taste and savoir-faire of NYSJE.

• BREAK THRU
• Music & Performance
• Brixton Records