Al Muirhead: Still Cookin' at 90: The Canada Sessions, Volume II

"Twelve years ago," bassist Kodi Hutchinson writes in the liner notes to The Canada Sessions, Volume II, "I found myself on a bandstand with 78-year-old trumpeter Al Muirhead. I remember thinking, why has this amazing musician never recorded under his own name?" Fast forward a dozen years, to 2025, and Muirhead, still going strong at age 90, has not only released five albums under his own name, he earned a prestigious JUNO nomination for the first one while continuing to hold the solo trumpet chair in the Calgary Jazz Orchestra.

The Canada Sessions, Volume 1 was recorded in 2017 with a who's who of Canada's leading jazz musicians including pianist Don Thompson, trumpeter Guido Basso, saxophonists Mike Murley and Campbell Ryga, and guitarist Reg Schwager. Volume II is more intimate, its five sessions placing Muirhead in various trio settings save for one duo, with pianist Hilario Duran, on Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Corcovado." As was true of Volume 1, the playlist is comprised almost entirely of standards from the Great American Songbook.

As Hutchinson and countless others have learned, once Muirhead puts the horn to his lips and starts blowing, his age immediately becomes irrelevant. This is simply a jazz trumpeter—a very good jazz trumpeter—doing what he does best, as he has always done in a professional career spanning some seven decades. True, the tempos here are less than challenging, but Muirhead adds weight and wisdom to every number, and shows he is capable of swinging with zeal on trumpet, flugelhorn and even bass trumpet (on "All the Things You Are" and "I Thought About You").

Muirhead shares the stage with singer Caity Gyorgy and pianist Mark LiMacher on "Dancing on the Ceiling" and "More Than You Know"; with singer-guitarist Jocelyn Gould and pianist Will Bonness on "My Shining Hour" and "I Thought About You"; with pianist Robi Botos and bassist Mike Downes on "Moonlight in Vermont" and "All the Things You Are"; and with flugelhornist Jens Lindemann and pianist Kristian Alexandrov on "What a Wonderful World."

It hardly bears noting that the supporting cast is superb. As for Muirhead, there's good reason why the subtitle to The Canada Sessions, Volume II reads "Still Cookin' at 90." While the cookin' may be done for the most part these days in a slow-cooker rather than a microwave, the banquet it produces is as flavorful and appetizing as ever.