Drummer Ari Hoenig is well known to habitués of Smalls, the downtown NYC club that for many years has fostered young jazz talent away from the spotlight that shines on larger, higher-profile venues. Hoenig’s recordings on the club’s associated label have shown him to be a supremely gifted percussionist as well as a versatile composer/arranger. Bert’s Playground can only enhance that reputation, as Hoenig marshals his ever-more-refined skills to create an eclectic program of his original compositions and imaginative arrangements of tunes by Coltrane, Kern, Monk, Gershwin and Shorter.
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