Standard Issue – Johnston / Lyons / Shelby / Hart – CD release

Standard Issue at Bird & Beckett celebrates the release of the band’s self-titled debut, a seven-track set recorded at Oakland’s 25th Street Studios that runs from Monk and McCoy Tyner to Sun Ra and Víctor Jara’s protest anthem “El Derecho de Vivir en Paz.” Trumpeter Darren Johnston — billed here on “peace cannon” — made the record after moving back to the Bay Area, and surrounded himself accordingly: bassist Marcus Shelby, the San Francisco composer behind the oratorios Port Chicago and Harriet Tubman, who has recorded with Tom Waits and Ledisi; drummer Lorca Hart, a CalArts graduate who studied with Albert “Tootie” Heath and Charlie Haden and has played with Freddie Hubbard and Hugh Masekela; and guitarist Kai Lyons, who also plays Cuban tres and won best tresero at the 2022 Changüí Festival in Guantánamo.