Joe Block: going places fast – photo, artist’s own website
This week’s podcast
Track of the Week ‘Another Day’ by The Espen Eriksen Trio
Somebody should – must – write lyrics for ‘Another Day’. Got a lot of “soft singing” potential in the Chet Baker mould if it becomes a vocal. But beautiful neverthless as an instrumental keeping it simple and sensitively interpreted by the EET. Drawn from Almost There.
Album of the Week Joe Block, There is Always Hope, Blue Engine ****
Block hails from Philadelphia and plays his originals here.
I think of Benny Green and Marcus Roberts in places in the combination of blues feeling, rhythmic clarity and a strong sense of tradition without sounding like an exercise in revivalism. Although do wear a suit while listening. Only kidding. The sound subscribes to some of the tenets laid down during the Young Lions era of the 1980s. The writing is at least as important here as the playing. Block became interested in jazz as a teenager through the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts and the Kimmel Center’s Creative Music Program. He subsequently completed the Columbia–Juilliard dual degree programme, graduating from Columbia in 2021 and Juilliard in 2022, studying with Geoffrey Keezer, Marc Cary, Ted Rosenthal and Frank Kimbrough (1956-2020).
In the video the Joe Block Quintet play album tune ‘Ungrounded’ – the pianist leader with trumpeter Noah Halpern, saxophonist Morgan Guerin, double bassist Nathan Pence and drummer Christian McGhee.
Block has performed with icons like Wynton Marsalis, Kurt Rosenwinkel – who is on the record – and Gary Bartz, among others and in 2025 was associate musical director and pianist for the Broadway production of George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck. Newcomer Noah Halpern is on trumpet, Chris Lewis on tenor and soprano saxophones, Morgan Guerin and Dylan Band on tenor, Abdias Armenteros on soprano saxophone, Samuel Harris on bass and Christian McGhee on drums, with the Eric Clapton endorsed Rosenwinkel making a special appearance on ‘Ungrounded’. Armenteros’ soprano contributions are particularly fine.
