Donald Harrison, Seratones

Donald Harrison was a teenager when he reinvented the sound of the second line for a jazz audience. Later, the nouveau swing pioneer sought to join forces with soul, funk and hip-hop, applying ideas from quantum physics to jazz. He shared the stage with Art Blakey and became a mentor to rap legend The Notorious B.I.G. When the “Big Chief” concentrates on his work on the saxophone in the intimate setting of a jazz band, he demonstrates versatility yet wants one thing above all: a musical dialogue among all the participants.

Love & Algorhythms by the soul-rock group Seratones is a protest album, but the most cheerful of the year. In one single, they define what a “Good Day” is and make the music sound just like it. But it’s not all that easy, as the seemingly simple yet stylistically highly complex music on the album proves. It’s influenced by sci-fi author Octavia Butler as well as Audre Lorde whom singer A. J. Haynes quotes, “Revolution is not a one-time event.”