Veteran jazz bassist and longtime Berklee College of Music Bass Professor Bruce Gertz has released his twentieth solo album, Running in the Background on the Open Mind Jazz label. Featuring nine new Gertz originals and the potent lineup of drummer Marvin Smitty Smith, pianist Lawrence fields, tenor saxophonist Walter Smith III, and the late guitarist Vic Juris, the recording is hailed as one of Gertz’s finest by jazz journalist and historian Scott Yanow. Yanow adds, “Bruce Gertz’s compositions utilize chord changes and modern harmonies that inspire inventive solos and alert interplay. The superior musicians are certainly up to the challenge and the recorded results grow in interest with each listen. In fact, one could spend a rewarding hour just concentrating on the playing and interplay of Gertz and Smitty Smith behind the lead voices.” According to the liner notes, the album title is inspired by Gertz’s experience learning that his phone’s speed was compromised due to apps running in the background. He found it to be a metaphor for life and how so many important issues, globally and personally, take a turn at being the focal point while they are all “running in the background.”