In April of this year, critically acclaimed clarinetist Mort Weiss celebrated his 80th birthday. Not quite two weeks before that big occasion, he celebrated another milestone: recording in New York with New York-based musicians for the first time in his most interesting career. Weiss traveled to Brooklyn to work at Systems Two, where he and the Don Friedman Trio romped and swung their way through the 13 songs (all standards except for the Weiss penned “Blues for Sandy”) that are captured on Mort Weiss Is a Jazz Reality Show, his 12th recording overall and his first in two years. That two year gap between recordings was marked by the sort of life changing events that led Weiss to title his album as he did. He had moved to rural Texas following the closing of his very successful Sheet Music Shoppe store in southern California but a few years after relocating, he and his wife, Jeanne, were diagnosed with cancer within five months of each ot...