Playscape Recordings is proud to release Arc (PSR#062315), the latest offering from veteran pianist/composer Andy Jaffe and his Nonet + 4. Jaffe's nonet features Wallace Roney on trumpet, John Clark on French horn, Kris Allen on alto saxophone, Jimmy Greene on tenor and soprano saxophone, Bruce Williamson on bass clarinet and soprano saxophone, Tom Olin on tenor, soprano and baritone saxophone, Marty Jaffe on bass and Jonathon Barber on drums. In addition to the nonet, Jaffe's + 4 comprises Taiwan's Golden Melody Award nominated Interestring Quartet, with Wei-Jun Huang on first violin, Wei-Hsin Liu on second violin, Chiee Yeh on the viola and Jiro Yeh on cello. Arc is Jaffe's second release on the Playscape Recordings label following the 2001 reissue of his Manhattan Projections.

It was during his trip in the fall of 2015 to teach and perform in Taiwan that Jaffe decided to pursue his long-time interest in recording a collection of previously composed material, along with some more recent compositions. Jaffe's exploration of cultural commonalities as they relate to jazz resulted in music rich with sounds and rhythms from Balkan, West African, and Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian musics, skillfully conveyed in Jaffe's Theme for the New Sixties originally written and performed by the Max Roach Double Quartet around 1980, as well as in new compositions such as Fleurette Chinoise, a 3-note melodic fragment borrowed from the bridge of Ellington's Fleurette Africaine.

Andy Jaffe has been an active jazz composer, performer, recording artist and jazz educator for more than three decades and has appeared as a guest lecturer, artist and conductor in Germany, Slovakia, New Zealand, Malta, and France, among many other places around the globe. During the past 38 years, Jaffe's teaching gigs included stints at the Berklee College of Music, the Institut Musical de formation Professionelle in Nimes, France and the Afro-American Music and Jazz program at UMASS Amherst. He has also been on the faculty at Tufts University, Amherst and Smith Colleges, and the Tainan (Taiwan) National University of the Arts, among many other institutions. He is presently the Lyell B. Clay Artist in Residence in Jazz, former Director of Jazz Activities and former Artistic Director of the Williamstown Jazz Festival at Williams College, teaching courses in jazz theory, improvisation, arranging and composition, the history of jazz composition and on the music of Duke Ellington and John Coltrane. He also teaches at the low residency MFA program in Music Composition at The Vermont College of Fine Arts.