Scott Petito | Many Worlds
(Planet Arts Records)
On one hand, Many Worlds is the latest release from stellar Catskill bassist/engineer Scott Petito. On the other, as Petito says in the brief liner notes, “music exists in its highest form when it is done in collaboration.” So, no surprise that despite playing, producing, recording, mixing, mastering, and penning all tracks, save Lyle Mays’s elegiac “Close to Home,” Petito cobills fellow masters Randy Brecker, Mino Cinelu, Peter Erskine, Steve Gadd, Larry Grenadier, Bashiri Johnson, Mike Mainieri, Simon Phillips, and others. The resulting eight tracks traverse global jazz from the airy opener “Dabwala,” featuring wordless vocals from Anna Maria Jopek; to the busier, but beautiful, “Bombogenesis,” which hangs on a sax line from Yellowjacket Bob Mintzer; to the leader’s subtle, yet harmonically rich solo effort on the title track. As Petito adds, “the interplay of lines and harmony offered by each individual meld into new pathways of creativity.”
This article appears in July 2023.
