I’m mega-excited to play with the great Victor Lewis this Saturday at the QJOG Spring Jazz Festival (and yes, nerd-police, we ARE playing “I Wanted to Say”). Looking at the breath of his career is fairly overwhelming and inspiring. If you can’t make it out on Saturday, enjoy the music on this list. If you can, then you’re in for a treat, as everyone is whenever he plays the drums.

Or maybe “Augmented Piano Trio?” I don’t know what to call it, really, but the Trio plus Chamber-Ensemble on my Ripples album have evoked a lot of questions about the inspiration and methodology behind that music. The hierarchy I had in mind is difficult to articulate. It’s not really “octet music” in the sense of the piano, bass and drums being a rhythm section. Neither, though, is the work of the rest of the ensemble purely decorative window-dressing. Essentially, the trio is the central unit with the rest of the musicians playing a supporting role, but a (hopefully) well-integrated and important one.

I love Tom Harrell’s trumpet playing, bandleading and composing and have enjoyed exploring his catalog to compile this list of personal favorites.

Yusef Lateef, who recently passed on at the age of 93, has had a profound influence on my music both in terms of the specific sounds in his recorded legacy and on a more conceptual level. In a world in which musicians so often have alliances that imply a certain disdain for “competing” factions, Yusef Lateef’s openness and breadth of skills and interests have been matched by few artists carrying the “jazz musician” label.

A figure as towering as the Duke does not need a schmoe like me to throw out adjectives to pump up his importance or greatness. Instead, my focus on the show was the musical qualities that have left the most indelible marks on me as a composer, pianist and bandleader.

R.I.P. to Jim Hall, one of my favorite jazz musicians, period.

Wrapping up my Cedar tributes (and my lists, having recently devoted Top 10s to each of these men without the other), here are 10 highlights among the dozens and dozens of tracks these two collaborated on that have been essential to the development of my own musical conception.

We’ll get to Billy Higgins plus Cedar Walton soon; in the meantime here are 10 of my favorite Billy sides without Cedar. What a great excuse to listen to one of the greatest drummers in jazz history.

This is the first of 3 related Top 10 lists – stay tuned for a Billy Higgins list and one featuring the work of Cedar and Billy together.