Top 50 Jazz Albums for the Week of 31 January 2011

This weekly list is from JazzWeek.com  - "the definitive Jazz national radio airplay chart—a weekly report of the top fifty Jazz recordings played on radio stations across the United States and Canada." If you'd like to see the detailed list, click here.

1 RUSSELL MALONE Triple Play (MAXJAZZ)

2 MARCUS SHELBY JAZZ ORCHESTRA Soul Of The Movement: Meditations On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Porto Franco)  

3 JOE LOVANO Bird Songs (Blue Note)

4 CASSANDRA WILSON Silver Pony (Blue Note)

5 LUTHER HUGHES & THE CANNONBALL-COLTRANE PROJECT Things Are Getting Better (Primrose Lane)

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Trumpet & Trombone Tuesday: Wayne Wallace

San Francisco based trombonist Wayne Wallace became a professional musician at the age of 16. He has performed with a whole host of artists such as The Asian American Jazz Orchestra, Pearl Bailey, The Count Basie Orchestra, Diane Carroll, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Conjunto Cespedes, Con Funk Shun (tour), Sammy Davis Jr., Pete Escovedo | Sheila E. (tour), The Joe Henderson Big Band , Lena Horne, Bobby Hutcherson, Irakere et al.

“I am a product of the Bay Area in so many ways," says Wallace, who grew up in San Francisco in 1960s. “I was here during the Peace-Love movement and the end of the Fillmore [Street] jazz scene, I missed the heyday, but I caught the end when some of the clubs still existed." 

Not surprisingly, he listened to and played all kinds of music back then, but didn't really embrace Latin music until he began working with Pete Escovedo in the mid-'80s. By then he'd already long been a bebopper with an extensive skill set that also included pop, rock and funk. While he defers to the sheer size and history of the Latin music scenes in Miami and New York, he's quick to point out that his hometown scene has a lot to offer.

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